Wonton Soup

Directed by Clara Law

Adrian is a Chinese Australian visiting his Hong Kong girlfriend Ann. The relationship is already in deep trouble because both are suffering from an identity crisis. Adrian is "yellow on the outside but white in the middle." The solution he thinks is a crash course for Adrian by his uncle on lovemaking techniques using a thousand-year-old Chinese sex manual. Naturally, Adrian's newly acquired skills do not work. The problem, as it turns out, is not that Adrian is "not Chinese enough" but that, according to Ann, he does not know "wonton soup does not exist in Hong Kong." The young couple's real problem, Law seems to suggest, is that they live in an eclectic and transnational cultural environment yet they are not aware of its implication for their mosaic identities. Wonton Soup is Law's contribution to the omnibus film Erotique, a collaborative effort by four women directors from four continents that bills itself as "women's erotica."