San Diego Asian Film Festival: Salad Days

There are many quirky, thoughtful and intelligent comedies on rotation amongst the 160 films at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. One in particular that stands out from the rest is Salad Days, a film the embraces the bizarreness within us all, as well as our yearning for sincere human connection.

A few members of the cast were nice enough to spend some time and chat a bit about Salad Days and some of their experiences in the filmmaking process.

The film isn’t told in a typical linear style, as Emily Yoshida, who plays Caitlin in the film, explained.

“There are actually 3 separate stories in Salad Days and they all interweave. The first story you’re introduced to is Caitlin’s, which is my character, and she’s kind of building a new online persona and she’s also interested in a secret admirer and debating whether or not to meet him in real life,” Yoshida said.

“Anthony’s story is about one of her (Caitlin’s) fans, who is trying to meet up with her as well, but he’s having a problem finding a wireless connection. Alex’s story is about this guy who has had a major life collapse and has been trying to make a new connection with old people in his life and some new ones,” Yoshida continued.

This film was made by a group of people that are all friends, and everything about the film is a product of their collective creativity. Hiram Chan, one of the directors of Salad Days, talked a bit about the inception of the film.

“We had just come off of Jeff Mizushima’s last movie Etienne! Jeff is one of our co-writer/directors and after we came off of post-production we wanted to shoot a film right away. We wrote a script, we approved it and we got all of our friends to act and be crew members. Once we wrote it, it was a go,” Chan said.

“They just kind of like put the script in front of me, and I was like ‘cool, sure,’ ” Anthony Kuan, who plays Anthony in the film, added.

Emily Yoshida

All three of the main characters are fixated on making intimate connections through social-networking. Yoshida and Kuan explained how they prepared to play characters that believe in a simple version of “true love.”

“Caitlin’s character, at the time especially, was very different from me. She’s a lot more naïve kind of open to the possibility of  finding true love or something like that. It was almost sort of tapping into a younger version of myself,” Yoshida said. “I had to go back and find how I felt about love and making meaningful connections.”

Kuan also tapped into his past experiences , in preparation for his role in Salad Days.

“Some of my motivation was from me experiencing lost love or being scarred from the situation of an ex-girlfriend, and shutting down and only being focused on one thing, like my character trying to find the Internet connection so he can meet the other character in the movie,” Kuan explained.

Anthony Kuan

“Anthony was just Anthony, so if he didn’t get the scene right I would just beat him with a stick,” Chan added jokingly.

Social-networking plays a pivotal role in the film, allowing the characters to constantly connect with one another; yet, in a different sense than when communicating  face-to-face.

“Something that comes up with social networking relationships is that there’s this new expectation that you need to be working on it at all times. It’s sort of uncommon to have a day when you don’t update your friends on what you’re doing,” Yoshida said. “I think that kind of constant connection is where a lot of people tend to get anonymity at the same time.”

Since the film was shot in a span of a few years, some of the technology is outdated. For example, there’s no Twitter and the Facebook screens are older versions.

“It does feel a little bit dated because technology just evolves so quickly, but I think that that makes Salad Days more relevant,” Chan said.

For the aspiring actors and filmmakers out there, the cast of Salad Days had some thoughtful advice.

“Think of a way to distinguish your film from a lot of other films. Even in the Asian market a lot of films seemed pigeon-holed in a certain genre,” Kuan said.

“Technology allows you to tell most stories you want to tell, just pull your resources and do it,” Chan added.

The cast of Salad Days made a wonderful Comedy that is truly unique, simply following the advice they give.

Check out the Salad Days website here.

Check out the schedule for the San Diego Asian Film Festival here.