Anne Hu is an NYC-based, Taiwanese American, award-winning director, writer, actress, and editor in narrative film and TV. She
completed Netflix's first Original Series Directors Development Program in 2022. Her previous short “CAKE” was accepted into 38 festivals, earned 9 awards, and was featured in The Washington Post. “Lunchbox” has already screened in a number of festivals in the US, winning awards from Cleveland International, DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon and Cinena Columbus.
“Lunchbox” is screening at New Filmmakers Los Angeles
The narrative unfolds in a number of axes, with one taking place in the present and the rest in the past. Using her deceased immigrant mother's recipe book, Taiwanese American Shirley makes zongzi, turnip cake, and hand-cut noodles. Each meal evokes a different memory from her childhood, all of which are quite negative though. The first one reminds her of going to elementary school and the kids making fun of her for the smell of zongzi and the second one has her girlfriends mocking her for not having a boyfriend, and a boy toying with her feelings in the cruelest fashion. The second one takes place during homecoming, where Shirley is waiting for her mother to accompany her but she is late, with her discontent for her mother's ways reaching the level of resentment.
The juxtaposition of the present with the past arcs emerges as the best part of Ann Hu's work, with her editing being truly top notch, both in the way the various flashbacks are interspersed throughout the meticulous preparations of the aforementioned recipes, and in the way she creates a palpable tension in the Homecoming section through frequent cuts and the increasing music tempo.
At the same time, her comments are also eloquently presented, particularly the racist behavior Asian Americans have to face in the US, which is actually presented as the source of her (misplaced) resentment for her mother: not being able to go against her whole world, she accuses her mother of insisting on her Asian ways despite the fact they are not accepted in the Western setting she grew up in. However, the way Shirley still follows her mother's recipes as she raises her own daughter, shows that she has finally accepted hers and her mother's legacy, and also that the setting in the US now is much more accepting than the way it was when she was a child.
Zach Kupersteing's cinematography captures both the food preparation and the various settings of the past with attention to detail and realism, although in a way that does look a bit too polished on occasion. Ann Hu in the role of Rachel highlights her feelings through her movements and facial expressions convincingly, with the apogee of her and Dawn Ying Yuen's (who plays her mother) acting being the Homecoming scene, which is essentially the one that stands out from the movie. Elizabeth Gao and Audrey Liao that play the younger versions of Rachel also do a nice job, as much as all the kids that appear in the short.
“Lunchbox” is a very impactful short, both due to its context and its cinematic approach, in another testament to the progress of Asian-American cinema.
