Saving Face, Losing Self - A Reflection and Review on Alice Wu’s Saving Face
February is the month of love, evoking sappy images of candy hearts and Valentine cards. But love is often complex, and goes beyond the romantic- love can include friends, family, culture. For Asian Americans, love can feel contradictory in its complexity. Queer Asian Americans in particular might feel like they are only allowed love of family, or love of culture- and denied love of their true selves in the process. That’s where Saving Face, a 2004 rom-com by Alice Wu, comes in. The film might be a romantic comedy but has many thoughtful reflections and explorations of queerness, culture, and Asian-Americanness (particularly Chinese-American experiences). Most of all, Saving Face has lessons on love that even contemporary audiences and Asian Americans are still in need of.
The title of the film, Saving Face, is one of these lessons- or at least points to the central one Alice Wu conveys in her artful rom-com far ahead of its time. In Asian-American culture broadly, and for Chinese-Americans, "face" is everything. Reputation is one of the few things preserved going to America, and often means the last meaningful remnant of a life left behind. It is cultural and social currency, and also a legacy. As such, “saving face” is a phrase commonly felt in Asian communities- even if not explicitly said. It’s an idiom that evokes images of social vindictiveness and avoidance, and more literally refers to remedying mild social humiliation or ostracization.
The “face” you wear is not that of merely yourself, but your family, heritage, and history. One often goes to great lengths in Chinese culture to avoid losing face, often at substantial personal cost- a legacy of sacrifice that is frequently a cultural assumption and a familial undertaking reinforced by the surrounding community. This self-sacrifice (and the toll it takes) from generation to generation is what the movie Saving Face explores. Saving Face also asks what it means to be queer in a culture that has been redirected through history to judge and shun you- denying who you are, and the other kinds of love you may be starved for.
Wil (Michelle Krusiec) and her mother Hwei-Lan (Joan Chen) watch a soap opera together before bed. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Appropriately, Saving Face is a multi-generational story. The story follows Wilhelmina (Wil) Pang (Michelle Krusiec), a young and successful surgeon whose mother, Hwei-Lan Gao (Joan Chen) routinely tries to set her up with young Chinese men at community buffet dinners (and the dances that follow). Hwei-Lan is a widow and often insists on seeing Wil’s future secured while she can, despite Wil being successful on her terms. Ever watchful, the community also inquires after Wil’s dating status- or lack thereof. One night after work, Wil returns to see her mother sitting alone in front of her Manhattan apartment, forlorn. Wil’s grandparents have kicked her mother out because she is pregnant- and refuses to reveal the father. Ostracized by the community and shunned by her own father, who is horrified that his 48-year old daughter is unmarried and pregnant, Hwei-Lang Gao has no choice but to live with Wil. At the same time, Wil slowly falls for Vivian (Lynn Chen), a free-spirited, strong-willed dancer and the daughter of the surgeon who Wil works for. Wil and Vivian ironically meet at the very dinners her mom insists on taking her to meet eligible suitors.
Wil discretely navigates dating Vivian, hiding the nature of their relationship from Hwei Lan. Her mother, distracted with her own issues and trying to “save face” is merely happy to see Wil spend time with a Chinese-American woman, hoping it will prompt Wil to further embrace her culture and become more “feminine”. Meanwhile, Hwei-Lan is cast out, ignored by her friends, and routinely ridiculed- which helps Wil see why her mother denies Wil’s identity and happiness, as Hwei Lan has been denied her own as well. Both Wil and Gao have to navigate saving face- and Vivian as well, though she has no interest in it. As they date, Wil begins to gain confidence with Vivian’s openness, and Gao begins her own journey of sexual liberation and empowerment in her identity. All the characters are flawed, but honest and refreshing in their complexity. None are truly villainous- even the community who ostracizes Wil and Gao, or Gao when she denies Wil’s sexuality. Their experiences are a remarkable commentary on the dangerous power of palatability and shame, and its connections to patriarchy and colonialism. Despite indiscretions of their own, the men in the community are never subjected to the levels of scrutiny the women are- and no matter their age or marital status, are never seen as less than or undesirable. Parallely, queerness is seen as something to be ashamed of, despite the fact that bisexuality was a common practice in the Han Dynasty. The film turns this on its head, calling out the hypocrisy of a community that stakes its worth on reputation rather than genuine connection or even celebration of culture. Wil and Gao are able to show that saving face really only means sacrificing oneself, denying love in other forms one desires. And in doing so, they break that generational cycle.
Pictured: Wilhelmina Pang (Michelle Krusiec) and Vivian Shing (Lynn Chen) kiss on the dance floor Courtesy of Photo 12/Alamy
Perhaps most importantly, Saving Face is a perfect rom-com; dialogue that flows and manages lightness and depth in important moments, and transitions well between English, Mandarin, and Shanghainese. There’s banter, a meet-cute, believable chemistry, comic relief. Still, there is no erasure of serious issues or intersectional identities in the process, either. For these reasons and more, Saving Face is a revolutionary film. It is the first Hollywood movie that centered on Chinese Americans since The Joy Luck Club, and is the first East Asian American lesbian film. Especially appreciated is the fact the film doesn’t pander- it doesn’t water down the struggles of Chinese-American identity, compounded by the complexities of queerness, to become palatable to a mainstream audience. It also refuses to be emotionally manipulative or evoke the kind of sad art house movie lesbian, wlw, and queer movies are often relegated to being. In addition to a tasteful and artfully done sex scene, it gives queer Asians a happy ending.
Perhaps that’s the most important and deserved lesson of all- there is no point in saving face if it’s not truly yours. As a queer Asian American myself, I know what it’s like to feel caught between multiple worlds that seem to despise the other parts of you. To feel like you have to choose versions of yourself, and inadvertently never be any of them truly, as a consequence. There is no denying that it’s not simple or easy like the average rom-com path- but the happiest ending is where you get to be yourself, culture and community included. No “saving face” required.
