Thousand Pieces of Gold Movie Review
Among the impressive domestic entries at 1990's Mill Valley Film Festival was Nancy Kelly's Thousand Pieces of Gold, starring Rosalind Chao as Lalu, a reluctant immigrant to America during the 1880s. Even though her father sells her to a marriage broker, she is filled with nostalgia for her family and her homeland. Her first stop on the West Coast is San Francisco's Chinatown, where she is bought and paid for by a Chinese agent named Jin, who delivers her to Oregon saloon keeper Hong King. To avoid the life of a whore, Lalu works hard around the saloon, still dreaming that she can return home one day. She becomes infatuated with the agent who promises that he will earn the money to rescue her from Hong King. Instead, Hong King loses Lalu in a card game and she moves in with the winner, Charlie. Although she insists that their relationship remain platonic, she loses the respect of the agent who assumes the worst and rejects her. Lalu, with her new American name of Polly, is forced to fend for herself. Filmed entirely in Nevada City, Montana, Thousand Pieces of Gold accomplishes wonders with its small budget and straight-forward narrative. Rosalind Chao gives such a remarkable performance as Lalu that you'll wish that she were offered more such roles instead of the supporting roles she normally plays in films like Chinese Web, The Big Brawl, Twirl, Slamdance, White Ghost, and Memoirs of an Invisible Man. (She got her chance in The Joy Luck Club, featuring Michael Paul Chan.) Equally good is John Sayles regular Chris Cooper (Matewan, City of Hope, Lone Star) in the beautifully written role of Charlie. Dennis (The Last Emperor) Dun and Michael Paul Chan do a good job revealing the negative aspects of Chinese assimilation into the get-rich-quick society of the Victorian era. Anne Makepeace's well-shaded screenplay for Thousand Pieces of Gold is based on Ruthanne Lum McCann's biographical novel.
1991 (PG-13) 105m/C Rosalind Chao, Dennis Dun, Michael Paul Chan, Chris Cooper, Jimmie F. Skaggs, William Oldham, David Hayward, Beth Broderick; D: Nancy Kelly; W: Anne Makepeace; C: Bobby Bukowski; M: Gary Remal Malkin. VHS, LV, Closed Caption