In the Nguyen cuisine: pop and tangy (critic)

A musical in the Vietnamese community in France. A first feature film that fits in softness and optimism.

Yvonne Nguyen is of Vietnamese origin and dreams of a career in musical. Except that her mother preferred that she decided to resume her restaurant in the Parisian suburbs … Inspired by her double cultural heritage, the French Stéphane Ly-Cuong (whose parents are Vietnamese) adopts a diet of pop and tangy images which sometimes recalls that of Drama queensbut applied here to a matter of quest for identity … and food. One does not go without the other for the director, who uses the kitchen as a place of reconciliation and return to the roots. No anger here, or almost: the film carbides softness and optimism, with its burlesque sequences and its playful musical numbers.

“”I have a taste for musical from a very young age, as soon as I discovered Donkey skin Or Mary Poppins. It is a genre that transcends reality, which allows you to project yourself into a different world “specifies the director. “”I was a child with characteristics that I never saw in the cinema. I had no possible model, no representation to which I attach myself. The musical, with its offbeat, magical side, was like a refuge. We have the feeling, as an immigrant, as a gay, that we can perhaps find his place in this universe. “

And Ly-Cuong shares his unfortunate pleasure here to enjoy the clichés of the genre as much as to divert them. Beware, the song of the Nems will take you a few hours in your head.

Of StalePhane Ly-Cuong With Clotilde Chevalier, Camille Japy, Leanna Chea… Duration 1 h 35. Released March 5, 2025