Title: I Will Make You Mine
Director: Lynn Chen
Executive Producer: Nobu Nagatsuma, Michael Lerman, Duane Andersen, Gary Chou, Brian Kobashikawa, Joel Clark
Producer: Dave Boyle, Lynn Chen, Mye Hoang, Cathy Shim, Emily Ting
Screenwriter: Lynn Chen
Cinematographer: Bill Otto, Carl Nenzén Lovén
Editor: Abe Forman-Greenwald
Production Designer: Ashley Bussell
Sound Designer: Carlos Sanches
Music: Goh Nakamura
Principal Cast: Lynn Chen, Yea-Ming Chen, Ayako Fujitani, Goh Nakamura, Joy Osmanski, Mike Faiola, Tamlyn Tomita, Ayami Riley Tomine
Year: 2020
Premiere Status: World Premiere
Country: United States
Language: English
Runtime: 79 mins
Distributor: Gravitas Ventures
Release Date: Mary 26 – Cable On Demand | Digital Platforms
What it is: Three women wrestle with life’s difficulties while confronting their past relationships with the same man (IMDb)
What we think: The film centers around the three female leads, introducing you to them in a way that immediately demonstrates the vastly different lives they lead. From Rachel’s (Lynn Chen) broken stain glassed life, Erika’s (Ayako Fujitani) disappointing normalcy, to Yea-Ming’s (Yea-Ming Chen) artistic tumbleweed existence, their only commonality seems to be their similar desire for Goh (Goh Nakamura). Goh, a former musician turned aspiring family man, seems content to accept each woman’s advances with almost a comical lack of enthusiasm. Whether its rooted in lack of interest or lack of understanding of their intentions remains unclear through out the movie, much as the reason for his appeal to the three women. And yet we watch all three women seemingly float through there lives on a self destructive course around Goh, lacking self-confidence or even the self awareness we now crave in female centered films. All three seem to have lives yet none of that appears to fulfill them if they lack Goh, which is surprising as he barely lends anything evident of support in the film. Rachel seems the most confusing of all as we repeatedly are reminded that her husband is cheating, driving her to fixate on Goh’s response to her to somehow fix her pain. The result not being what she wants, she returns to her husband at an almost hyper speed only to seal herself to him in a confusing, insecure way that demonstrates her inability to exist without male acceptance; an uncomfortable truth about all the women in the film.
Our Grade: C, The film deserves kudos for its all marginalized cast and for having three female leads and a female director. However the lengths the women go to for Goh, in contrast with his almost lethargic response to them all, perpetuates the often harmful seductress trope rooted in the patriarchy. The film simultaneously takes three strong characters and makes them almost unable to exist without the approval of a man who’s appeal is difficult to identify other than he is a singer, again, another awkward trope. The women, then consciously aware of each other, seemingly ignore respect for each others boundaries in a race to make Goh theirs, hitting on that idea that women will forever be in competition with each other. The entire film is done in black and white, but the answers are anything but. If anything the film proves that female led films will vary in perspective, providing he variety they are often accused of lacking.
The movie is available for pre-order on iTunes here, and will be available via Cable On Demand services starting May 26.
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