The scene I enjoyed most was when Young-Soon Choi was at the dance club and was translating over the phone for Cleveland and her crusty mom, who made Cleveland stay out in the hall. The stereotype of Asians having ancient wisdom/remedies ("ancient Chinese secret") was a bit annoying. I mean, why couldn't the Mexican dude be the tale teller? Nevertheless, the scene was well done and humorous, with a goofy party girl being the link between two individuals who couldn't otherwise understand each other and who didn't really want to deal with each other at all.
So there's that story in the story, an explanation. But there's a more general explanation at the beginning of the movie, before the action starts, where the primitive line drawings are used to explain how humans lost touch with the sea people and became a degenerated civilization. The drawings show up again at the end as the credits roll, to reinforce the fairytale frame of reference. Do you think these various stories about the story work? Do they work well together? Did the intro story intrigue you?
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The intro story did intrigue me. I thought, oh, that's kind of neat. There are native American stories that are kind of similar, about humans failing to listen to nature and wise animals and so on, which I've always enjoyed.
I took the intro story as the history, the facts of the past. Young-Soon's mom's story, then, was the passed-down story about the once-remembered past. I found it sort of far-fetched that a bedtime story that had been passed down for generations would be so accurately remembered by this woman. Wouldn't some details have changed over the years of telling?
Well, you know how superstitious those Orientals are. They probably made a point of remembering precisely to avoid some horrible curse from the Otherworld. Just like they remember all those ancient Chinese laundry secrets and herbal remedies and whatnot.
Details would change over the years. That’s why I wish there had been two competing versions that they had to contend with.
But what was Young-Soon’s motivation in all this? If she couldn’t be bothered to take more than multiple choice classes, why would she both to help to dig out the details of an old fairy tale? Likewise, I thought the cookie and milk scene was amusing enough, but isn’t that more an American tradition with european roots?
The illustrations that went with the back story were cool. I was hoping they would be incorporated into the film somehow. Maybe in Story’s underwater room?
The first shot of Young-Soon was kinda cool — where the handyman and the critic encounter her.
There were some inconsistencies in her character (and some stereotyping too), but I considered those a small shortcoming compared with the film's really glaring problem, namely that it sucked monkey butt.
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