28) PASSPORT TO LOVE

Director: Victor Vu
Stars: Binh Minh, Huy Khanh, Kathy Uyen, Ngoc Diep, Tang Bao Quyen
Year: 2009
Rating: PG-13
(in Vietnamese with English subtitles)

Khang (Binh Minh) and Hieu (Huy Khanh) are best friends currently in college in Saigon. Khang, the ladies' man, shirks his studies and becomes adept at spending his rich father's money, leading the high live with plenty of booze and women and sex. Hieu, more bookish, is studious and in complete control of his future, determined to be the next Bill Gates (he even has a poster of the world-famous Microsoft entrepreneur on his world) even as he tries - in vain - to keep Khang libido in check and the guy in school. When Khang's dad busts him for flunking his classes, threatening to remove him from school and cut him off money-wise for sure, Khang instead follows Hieu to California, the two buddies heading off for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to study in America (well, Hieu will be studying; Khang's hopes are to get away with even more while his dad is half a world away).

Hieu bids a sad farewell to his beautiful, sweet-natured fiancee Thao (Tang Bao Quyen), and the boys arrive in Orange County, where almost immediately Khang gets arrested and spends the night in jail after trying to drive drunk during a night of partying with a pretty girl. What Khang doesn't count on is the beautiful but no-nonsense single-mom cop, Tiffany (Kathy Uyen), he immediately falls for at the police station ... who has no problem with letting Khang know she thinks he's a spoiled little rich brat she can't even stand the sight of.

Meanwhile, to please his mother, Hieu connects with an old friend of hers who lives in the area - a very Americanized Vietnamese lady with a husband ... and college-aged daughter who is SO Americanized, it has her parents concerned. Jennifer (Ngoc Diep) can't speak proper Vietnamese, is as vague and shallow as a valley girl, wears too much makeup and too many designer names, and is sexually active with her boyfriend. Jennifer's mother offers Hieu his first job in the States - tutoring the vapid Jennifer in proper Vietnamese - but Jennifer turns out to be such a bratty, uncaring airhead that Hieu pretty much drops the idea after the first lesson, taking a restaurant serving job, instead.

But Jennifer's not out of Hieu's life for good ... and as Khang starts to have genuine feelings for a woman for the first time in his life, he finds himself trying more and more to convince Tiffany he can become a changed man, often with funny results.

And THAT is the main conflict of this romantic dramedy, as Hieu and Khang navigate the waters of romance in America. It's a charming film, with a nice sense of humor and very real performers from a good ensemble cast. Binh Minh is awesome as Khang, the commitment-phobic player you love to hate that viewers will be rooting for all the way ... and Huy Khanh, though he is given much less of an emotional range to work with as Hieu, still manages to breathe real life and heart to the character, making you care very much for Hieu even as the guy makes some very stupid mistakes in his attempt to always do the right thing. Of the ladies, the innocence of Thao is nothing short of charming - she's the girl every good guy in the world hopes to have - and Tiffany, you start to think, might just be what Khang needs to turn himself around ... if only she didn't dislike him so much! Jennifer, the spoiled brat who has to have everything her way, got on my nerves throughout - but hey, every romantic film needs a villain, right?

Charming and funny and tinged with just the right amount of drama, passion and pathos, Passport to Love has enough of a twist on your typical romantic dramedy to keep things fresh. Well worth seeing. **** - Reel Awesome