Golden Delicious *** (2022, Cardi Wong, Chris Carson, Parmiss Sehat, Ryan Mah) – Classic Movie Review 12,654

Jason Karman’s Canadian 2022 coming-of-age drama feature film debut Golden Delicious is an extremely nice and sweet, cheerful and romantic movie. The Chinese Canadian teenage hero Jake discovering his sexuality is winningly played by Cardi Wong.

Jason Karman’s Canadian 2022 coming-of-age drama feature film debut Golden Delicious is an extremely nice and sweet, cheerful and romantic movie, so it’s a surprise that after a fairly lengthy two hours of entertaining and involving very nicely, it finally ends up feeling a tiny little bit thin and unsatisfying, with all its tricky loose ends wrapped up way too cosily, concluding with a merry dance and a kiss.

The Chinese Canadian teenage hero Jake is winningly played by Cardi Wong, who keeps you on his side, but the character isn’t as heroic as all that. His ‘be true to yourself’ behaviour is all very well, but it is very solipsistic and hurtful to others, particularly his two romantic interests, his girlfriend and the new gay boy next door.

Cardi Wong stars as Jake, a nice Chinese Canadian high schooler amenable to all the expectations of his family, girlfriend and school friends. The arrival of a handsome newly arrived, openly gay boy next door Aleks (Chris Carson), excites Jake, who follows him onto the school basketball team, delighting his former athlete father George (Ryan Mah). Jake has two equally nice buddies on his side, Sam (Hunter Dillon) and Gary (Zavien Garrett), and an enemy in a basketball bully, the homophobic team captain Ronald (Jesse Hyde).

Jake lets his pushy girlfriend Valerie (Parmiss Sehat) lead him on, eventually consummating their love, while he leads on Aleks, to the girlfriend’s dismay then shock. Jake is discovering his sexuality at the expense of others, and doesn’t treat Aleks of the girlfriend at all well. Meanwhile the film spends a lot of profitable time concentrating on the macho dad, and his crumbling marriage, with full-scale disapproval of him as a ‘cheater’ when mom Andrea (Leeah Wong) finds there are messages from another woman on his phone. Jake falls over himself condemning his dad, but he becomes a ‘cheater’ too when he starts to get it together with Aleks. Then there’s Jake’s sister Janet (Claudia Kai), who wants to be a cook, and eventually take over the family Chinese restaurant, to the horror of her parents, who think they are wasting their lives running it and don’t want her to waste hers too.

It’s all good grist to the dramatic mill. Soon everybody is shouting at everybody else. Eventually, Jake has had more than he can take, and takes off, Amazingly, this emotional and sexual mess does have a happy ending, and it kind of shouldn’t. It would be better off without it, but then it wouldn’t be such a feel-good film, more of a realistic take on first love.

Nevertheless, Golden Delicious is likeable, relevant and appealingly warm-hearted, and a delicious, pretty near irresistible portrait of the first love of a teenage boy discovering his sexuality. It is emotionally quite hard hitting and Cardi Wong is definitely winning.

Golden Delicious is the name of the restaurant the family run.

Director: Jason Karman. Writer: Gorrman Lee.

It stars Cardi Wong and Chris Carson, Parmiss Sehat. The cast also includes Ryan Mah, Leeah Wong, Claudia Kai, Jesse Hyde, Hunter Dillon, Zavien Garrett, Jeff Joseph, Kameron Louangxay, Cole Howard and David Kaye.

It runs 119 minutes.

The film premiered in the Northern Lights program at the 2022 Vancouver International Film Festival on October 5, 2022. It won four awards at the 2022 Reelworld Film Festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Jason Karman is a Master of Fine Arts in Film Production and Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.  His debut feature Golden Delicious is supported by Telefilm Canada’s Talent to Watch programme and was filmed in March 2021 at the height of the pandemic.

Gorrman Lee is a Chinese-Canadian screenwriter and producer based in Vancouver.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,654

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