Name: Two Lies
Genre: Short
Released: 2023-05-01
Duration: 25 min
Rating: 6.7
Cast: Dian Kobayashi, Sala Iwamatsu, Marie Nakano

A sad story...which was quite the rage at the time.

This short film was written and directed by Pamela Tom and it addresses a rather sad trend which was VERY popular in the 1980s-90s...especially in Korea and Japan...though this is set in the States. It's about plastic surgery Asians were getting in record numbers in order to make themselves look more 'Western'. In other words, they had epithelial fold surgery to round out their eyes...which was rather sad because it was unnecessary.

You see the story through the eyes of a teenage Chinese-American girl and the film is done in black & white...something not too unusual for independent shorts. Her mother has just had one of these surgeries, though through the course of the film the mother keeps hiding her face and wearing sunglasses. As for the daughter, she's ashamed that her mother got this surgery. However, if you didn't know it was about such surgery, the story might be confusing at the start. You know SOMETHING is wrong with the mother...and only later do you realize what it is as they begin to talk about it.

So is this any good? Well, I think it's an important film because it brings this problem to light...exposing the sad self-loathing behind such surgeries. My only complaint is that the film was very vague towards the end...as if it wasn't exactly sure with what to do next. Still, it is worth seeing.

The short form refers to creative works characterized by their brevity and concise storytelling. Unlike full-length feature films, short films have a running time of less than 45 minutes, while TV shorts have a running time of less than 22 minutes.

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Two Lies

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