Seeking Asian Female

This documentary is a full on steady thrilling ride of probing questions, a mountain of huge ones which hang over each scene thus immense levels of drama.

Without any spoilers, I say the film's premise is not observing a white guy with a mail order Chinese bride which is so generic, overplayed, stereotypical & label-centric of a description that it's so rude to the film. Rather, the documentary is about the many questions which all think & few dare voice: why? what is ambition? do they know what they're getting into? are they going to make it? will they be happy? what is happy? is marriage a solution or the problem? how will the money work out? is love important? how do they love? what is love? These sorts of vast questions are what make the film so intoxicatingly awesome, so thrillingly tempting, so eagerly watched by so many.

Yet another fascinating angle is the documentarian's own presence. The typical Heisenberg Principle arises in many documentaries: how to observe without being a part of the film. Invariably, this film has Lum doing translation work which raises a hornet's nest full of questions about how she alters the otherwise natural flow. Truly, a wonderful set of questions atop the existing ocean of questions.

To this day, I still am dying for an update or a sequel. Lum's writing, editing & narration are too good, the issue too vast, the characters too interesting. Indeed, everything I'd hoped for in a documentary.