Humor, Pathos in Multicultural ‘Catfish’ Stew

“Catfish in Black Bean Sauce” marks the ambitious feature debut of Vietnamese-born Chi Muoi Lo, who wrote, produced and directed this film as well as acted, in a leading role. Chi has spread himself too thin, resulting in an uneven picture but one that has plenty of substance and emotion.

Chi has been singularly fortunate in his stars, Mary Alice and Paul Winfield, veterans of such resources and presence that they make the entire film worth watching. What they can accomplish with a glance and a shrug is a pleasure to behold.

Alice and Winfield play a kindly middle-aged, middle-class African American couple, Dolores and Harold Williams, who were unable to have children of their own. While serving in Vietnam, Harold came to the rescue of a 10-year-old Vietnamese girl and her little brother, who were put up for adoption by their desperate mother. Dolores, a woman with a considerable sense of propriety, and the laid-back Harold have been outstanding parents, with their daughter Mai (Lauren Tom) married to another Vietnamese refugee (Tzi Ma) and their son Dwayne (Chi) a bank manager on the verge of presenting an engagement ring to Nina (Sanaa Lathan), a beautiful young African American who puts in long hours at a medical clinic.

In an instant this image of cross-cultural solidarity and contentment is shattered when Mai joyfully announces that she has finally located her birth mother, due to arrive in a week. Dolores and Harold were under the impression that Mai had given up her search long ago, and her thoughtlessness in not preparing them leaves Dolores stunned and hurt yet determined to rise to the occasion with dignity. Their birth mother, Thanh (Kieu Chinh), while having been through a terrible ordeal and ecstatic at being reunited with her children, proves to be a haughty, critical woman.

The plan had been that Thanh should live with Mai and her husband, but Thanh insists on moving in with Dwayne and his roommate Michael (Tyler Christopher), although Dwayne barely remembers her and harbors deep resentment toward her for abandoning him.

In short, Chi has created a volatile situation ripe for both humor and pathos, and he discovers plenty of both. He should have quit while he was ahead. Instead he throws in a murky and contrived subplot in which Dwayne finds himself in a curiously passionless relationship with Nina while becoming mightily upset that his hunky roomie has become involved with a pre-op Chinese transsexual, Samantha (Wing Chen). You’re given the impression that Dwayne is struggling to deny his attraction to Michael, but Chi raises this possibility only to back away from it. That Thanh seems a latent racist, not at all pleased that Dwayne is engaged to Nina and eager to line up a Vietnamese girl for him, is quite enough of a complication; Michael and Samantha are a whole other movie.

Chi is on far surer ground as a writer-director in the film’s more serious moments or at those times when the humor seems to arise naturally from a complicated predicament. He is a good director of actors, though a bit of a showoff himself, too eager to hog the spotlight. Yet in its theatrical way “Cat-fish in Black Bean Sauce” does end on a note of hard-earned wisdom and reconciliation.

* MPAA rating: PG-13, for brief strong language and sexual content. Times guidelines: some adult situations, suitable for mature older children.

‘Catfish in Black Bean Sauce’

Paul Winfield: Harold Williams

Mary Alice: Dolores Williams

Chi Muoi Lo: Dwayne

Lauren Tom: Mai

A Blackhawk Entertainment release of an Iron Hill Pictures/Warwick Pictures production. Writer-producer-director Chi Muoi Lo. Cinematographer Dean Lent. Editor Dawn Hoggatt. Music Stanley A. Smith. Costumes Maral Kalinian. Production designer Skyler J. Adler. Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes.

At selected theaters.