| 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 |
The Motel (2005) is the debut feature from director Michael Kang. The film won the Humanitas Prize in the Sundance Film Festival category, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature.
It is based on the novel Waylaid by Ed Lin.
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, an older girl who works at a Chinese restaurant nearby. Ernest's life changes after he meets the newest guest at the motel: a self-destructive yet charming Korean-American man named Sam Kim (Sung Kang), who is caught in a downward spiral after estrangement from his wife.