Cupid's Mistake
Written, produced, directed by Young Man Kang, 1999.
Featureing Susan Petry Toya Cho, Everado Gil, Ken Yasuda.

Pity poor Gil. He makes one girl cry because he DOESN't love her, and another girl cry because he DOES love her. It's a movie about vapid people who can't communicate, and relationships where no one relates. It's an "I love her, but she loves him, but he loves her..." chain-gang of young people searching. Each link passes the unrequited love bug on to the next without indulging in its joy along the way. Everybody is seeking something else. When lovely Toya tells Gil, "It's very unfair of you to tell me that you love me!" we sense the ghosts of many one-sided love affairs rising all around.

It's a beautiful young cast of relative newcomers, in a film shot around the splendor of Venice Beach with virtually no script. Renegade filmmaking hasn't been this experimental since the 1960s. Korean-born director Young Man Kang let his cast get the feel of the situation, then improvise their scenes, with a variety of results. And did we mention this is essentially a light hearted story, not a soap opera?

Reviewed by Frankenstein