Excellent but underrated film

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Ed is the patriarch of an Asian-American family, and after retiring from his job, he mopes about the house, periodically making ineffective attempts at suicide, which are depicted in a comedic manner. In between these episodes he watches home movies of his three daughters' childhoods, while his offspring embark on their lives. The oldest girl is planning her wedding to an Ivy League blue-blood, while the middle one is a medical student who becomes attracted to a soap actress researching the role of a doctor. The youngest is a high school student who responds to a schoolmate's romantic overtures by leaving dead rats in his mailbox. After Ed heads off to a Buddhist monastery to confront his issues, the daughters deal with the shallow arcs of their respective narratives . A few quirky ingredients are added to spice up their story-lines, but none amount to anything more than a few moments diversion from the director's wooden attempts to evoke a Zen sensibility with pseudo-minimalist techniques. By the time Ed returns, two of the daughters have hooked up with their prospects, and the third has disposed of her unsuitable suitor. The vibrant Asian-American culture deserves better than this self-consciously coy contribution.

Other than the problematic portrayals of Asian-Americans in terms of the lack of authenticity, this movie is also problematic in terms of pacing and story content. There's plenty of discussions elsewhere on the internet on what this indie film means to us Asian-Americans in terms of the lack of male representation and false depictions of Asian-American family life. With all that said, this movie is also problematic in terms of pacing and story content.What this movie desperately needs is a complete revamp of the script even before production began. The story seems very contrived and artificial. For an indie movie like this, the story is the only thing that makes or breaks its acceptance by the targeted demographic. What this movie lacks is focus and clarity. It meanders all over the place without a focus on any character that tells a concrete story. It's loosely constructed to tell a family story, but instead ends up arbitrary characters that are rather cliché and story plotting that seems forced rather than natural character developments. The tacked on "happy ending" didn't seem natural or deserved by the story plot and character motivations.It's like that bad joke about Chinese food leaving you hungry again after an hour; while this movie seems to have interesting subplots and characters, but at the end you realize what a phoney story it is. It's not simply there are mostly Asian-American females, but as an Asian-American if I can't identify with any of the characters then I think this story isn't really serving any purpose except like chop-suey it fools the mainstream audience to believe what Asian-Americans are about.

I saw Georgia Lee's "Red Doors" at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival in New York, and was really moved by this film.I connected with the experience of being a part of a family that is in transition -- what seems to have once been a tight-knit family unit is now diverging into different directions. The parents are getting older...the children are entering into adulthood...and basically the dynamics have changed, and they are having to relearn how to be a family in their new lives.There's emotion, there's humor, there's rawness and sincerity, there's good writing, acting, and music, and a window into a Chinese-American family -- what's not to love?!And I can't wait to see what Georgia Lee does next.

"Red Doors" is not a bad melodrama with some dark humor here and there. The Wongs is a traditional yet dysfunctional Chinese family with three daughters living in the suburbs of New York City. The eldest Samantha is a successful business woman who is about to get married to a Yale graduate. The middle one Julie is a shy medical student who fells in love with an actress. The youngest Katie is a rebellious high school student who expresses her affection to her high school mate in the most bizarre way. Not enough drama? Here comes the quiet dad, Ed, who overcomes his own crisis due to the newly retirement life by either watching his daughters' childhood videos or tried to kill himself.They have done everything to bless the best fortune for the family, including the red door at the front gate. But things don't seem always go the way they have hoped for.This film does a great job on examining the conflicts and confusions in these characters' minds with superb performance from the cast. But I simple can't get over with the fact that there is no Asian man in this film except the dad. All three daughters date Caucasians, even Julie dates a white chick! If the story were set in Kansas or Alabama, it would have been understandable because Asian men don't want to live there. But New York? I can't help but to feel unsettling with this "arrangement." Other than that, it's not a bad film.