The Motel (film)
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| The Motel | |
|---|---|
 Out of Place in the Middle of Nowhere. |
|
| Directed by | Michael Kang |
| Written by | Michael Kang |
| Starring | Jeffrey Chyau Sung Kang Jade Wu Samantha Futerman |
| Distributed by | PalmPictures |
| Release date(s) | January 24, 2005 (Sundance) |
| Running time | 76 min. |
| Language | English Cantonese |
| Budget | $250,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
The Motel is the debut feature from director Michael Kang. The film won the Humanitas Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.
[edit] Plot
Thirteen-year-old Ernest Chin's life is devoted to working at his family's hourly-rate motel, where a steady stream of prostitutes, johns, and various other shady characters come and go. Abandoned by his father, he lives with his mother, grandfather, and younger sister Katie. The film is a loosely assembled series of vignettes examining the difficulty of adolescence. Recurring themes include painful encounters with a bully named Roy and Ernest's persistent feelings of being misunderstood by his family. Ernest also blindly explores his incipient sexuality, which includes nursing a crush on Christine, the older girl who works at a Chinese restaurant nearby. Ernest's life changes after he meets the newest guest at the hotel: a self-destructive yet charming Korean-American man named Sam Kim, who is caught in a downward spiral after estrangement from his wife.
