China Girl

China Girl (1987) was an urban take on the classic Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet (courtesy of Nicholas St. John). The film was directed by the gritty street level film maker Abel Ferrara. Instead of the Capulets and the Montaques, this version involves two crime families (the Italian Mafia and Chinese Triads). Not only is this film about true love but it's about honor and old school loyalty. Instead of trying to follow the source material verbatim, Ferrara re-invents the classic tale.

I happen to be a big fan of Abel Ferrara. His style of film making is very unique and it's greatly missed in Hollywood. We need more directors like him. Someone who not only can make a movie on the cheap but produce a well thought-out film that'll force you to think and look outside the box.

Highly recommended.

My review was written in May 1987 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

"China Girl" is a masterfully directed, uncompromising drama and romance centering on gang rumbles (imaginary) between the neighboring Chinatown and Little Italy communities in New York City. Unspooled in the Cannes market but obviously worthy of official or sidebar slotting in the fest, extremely violent picture will need and stands a good chance of receiving critical approval to attract discerning audiences.

Nicholas St. John's screenplay hypothesizes an outbreak of a gang war when a Chinese restaurant opens in Italian territory (in reality, the current gang wars are strictly internecine between Chinese factions). In the midst of the battling a beautiful Chinese teenager (Sari Chang) falls in love with a pizza parlor gofer (Richard Panebianco). A la "West Side Story" and its source "Romeo and Juliet", the adults oppose the relationship and, more to the point, the Mafia dons and Chinese elder gangsters are in cahoots to maintain peace in their bordered territory, waiting to clamp down violently on both sets of youth gangs.

Director Abel Ferrara adopts a film noir visual style (lots of backlighting, wet streets at night and looming shadowplay) and it comes as no surprise that the pic builds to a tragic (and currently unfashionable) ending. He exacts potent thesping from the entire cast (several of the supporting players previously seen in Michael Cimino's "Year of the Dragon"), and with showy turns by James Russo as the hero's older brother and David Caruso as a hothead (given some of the film's funniest lines).

Russell Wong (as handsome as a shirt ad model) and sidekick Joey Chin dominate their scenes as the young Chinese gang leaders, while newcomer Panebianco is a forceful and charismatic young find. Title roler Sari Chang is called upon merely to be an idealized porcelain beauty and she fills the bill.

Ferrara, recently gaining notice as helmer of the pilot show for tv's "Crime Story" after such features as "Ms. 45" and "Fear City", creates remarkably vivid violent scenes, yet some of the picture's best work is in romantic interludes on the dancefloor of downtown clubs or a classic set piece of grief and rage set in a funeral parlor. Joe Delia's musical score plus some vibrant rock songs punch along the action insidiously.

William Shakespeare's eternal tale of young love gets yet another version in China Girl. Despite the racial tensions between the Chinese of Chinatown and the shrinking Italian population of Little Italy, Sari Chang and Richard Panebianco find each other and find love. Now if only those who might become their prospective in-laws will stop the hate.

China Girl was filmed completely on location in New York's neighborhoods of Little Italy and Chinatown. As the film says Little Italy where the fabled fictional Godfather had the Genco Olive Oil company is shrinking block by block as the Italians move out and a huge influx of Orientals move in and expand Chinatown. China Girl was done in 1987 so in twenty years the trend is exacerbated.

Players like James Russo, Russell Wong, and David Caruso have all gone on to bigger and better things, they're certainly more known than the leads are now. Still Panebianco and Chang are an attractive pair of kids.

The soundtrack is typical music from the Eighties in keeping with the times. Don't expect any songs for the ages like there were in West Side Story.

China Girl is a nice retelling of Romeo and Juliet a story that as long as there's life on planet Earth will never go out of style.

China Girl was a hip and very violent movie, I wish I saw at the cinema, when I had the chance. Italian boy falls for Chinese Girl-true romance, a reciprocated love. Now, here's the impasse: they're both related to warring gangs, even though the Italians, really the good guys, do have it in for the Chinese, where this Chinese Gang are part of a mafia, merely puppets on a string. When the Italian boy, Gino (an impressive Richard Panebianco) narrowly escapes having his lights punched out, when chased by the Chinese gang, the head the lovestruck girl's brother, this doesn't detur him or her, from further progressing the relationship, where they keep sneaking off like little children, despite warnings from their older protectors. As Wong, an Asian actor I love watching, says to her little Sis, Thai (an equally impressive Sari Chang) "You don't understand, you're nothing but a chink to them". I appreciated Wong's honesty, here, where honor runs high among this race. Wong was never truer in his words, too. Gino's older brother, Alby, and his friends are racist goons. In particular is red haired Caruso, who I loved in this, despite playing a d..khead immature character of loathing. One scene has him ordering egg rolls, while disrespectfully making squinting eyes at some Asian cooks nearby, while also insulting the ones serving him. Now that's a d..khead. Panebianco sets him straight defending the Chinese, where a physical fight almost ensues. It would of been good to see how it ended up, if Russo hadn't stepped in, but we know all too well, that Caruso would of one won, ending this conversation by getting Panebianco in a headlock, simmering him, then cutting him loose, where Panebianco would of just shrugged him off, and walked away. It is too, the worst fitting time, for these gangs to be in an escalating turf war, a war which of course, is also personal, caused by our love struck duo, as the Asian and Italian mafia head are trying to make a peace, a business negotiation. This is complicated by the arch enemy gangs, feuding, the main plot of the story, which I really liked. China Girl has great pumping music, it's finale song, I loved, after one of the most memorable and tragic climaxes I've seen. It's a simple message told throughout it's story, the consequences of hate and racism, that we don't just have to view it on screen. The exterior shot settings of Chinatown, and the Italian hood are well chosen. This Romeo and Juliet tale, minus the happy ending, but with stylized violence, a plus, has some great action sequences, one involving a shootout I loved, that ended with Caruso's crazed look, as he mouthed "Mother fu..ers" through clenched teeth. China Girl has it all, where the action/blood craving viewer will get his three dollars worth. One of the '88 movie treats. One of Ferrara's best. Personally, China Girl is his favorite, in his list of filmographies.

'China Girl' is easily Abel Ferrara's most conventional and commercial movie to date. Thankfully it improves on his previous movie 'Fear City', which was too compromised and "Hollywood" to succeed. The story is a basic updating of Romeo And Juliet set against the background of Chinese and Italian gang rivalry. Newcomers Richard Panebianco and Sari Chang play Tony and Tye the ill fated lovers who continue their forbidden romance against pressure from their family and friends. Neither actor has went on to all that much but they are both more than adequate and make a sweet couple. The real action comes from solid performances by James Russo ('Donnie Brasco'), David Caruso ('Kiss Of Death'), Russell Wong ('The Prophecy 2'), Paul Hipp ('Teenage Caveman') and Joey Chin ('Year Of The Dragon'), many of whom went on to work with Ferrara on later projects. It was also good to see Judith Malina ('Dog Day Afternoon') and veteran character actor James Hong ('Big Trouble in Little China') in supporting roles. While by no means as flamboyant and confrontational as Ferrara's best known work, this is a surprisingly entertaining story which should appeal to a much wider audience than his "difficult" but rewarding movies such as the stunning 'Bad Lieutenant' or the fascinating 'The Addiction'. This movie doesn't deserve its obscurity and is well worth a rental.