Review | Go Back to China movie review: rich kid has a reality check in Emily Ting’s film set in a Shenzhen toy factory
- Sick of his daughter’s frivolous ways, a factory owner in southern China cuts off her allowance and orders her to leave Los Angeles and come work for him
- Director Emily Ting’s earnest drama shows the duality of modern China through the culture clashes experienced by YouTuber Anna Akana, as the spoilt Sasha
3/5 stars
Inspired in part by her own experiences, writer-director Emily Ting follows up her 2015 debut Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong with the story of spoilt rich kid Sasha, who reluctantly leaves her Los Angeles high life to work in her estranged father’s toy factory in Shenzhen, southern China.
This well-meaning, if somewhat clumsy drama is bolstered by a charming central turn from YouTuber Anna Akana, and Richard Ng Yiu-hon as her deeply conflicted father.
Following the success of Lulu Wang’s awards darling The Farewell and the ostentatious romcom Crazy Rich Asians , Go Back to China arrives at a propitious time for Asian-American representation on the big screen.
What Ting’s film may lack in production budget it compensates for with telling first-hand knowledge of life in modern China on both sides of the poverty line, and the film is at its best when it follows Sasha as she crosses this economic divide.
A year after graduating from college, Sasha (Akana) has made little headway finding a job in fashion, but has managed to blow most of her trust fund on club nights and designer brands.