So Yun Um’s debut feature is a moving portrait of two Korean American children of liquor store owners reconciling their dreams with those of their immigrant parents, against the backdrop of struggles for racial equity in Los Angeles.
LA 주류 가게의 아메리칸 드림
USA Tribeca Film Festival 
South Korea Busan International Film Festival 
UK BFI London Film Festival USA South Korea UK USA 
All there is left to do is be happy.
We must protect Danny at all costs
“Change is relational.”
Old photos, movie clips, home video; an emotionally nuanced autobiography in a cultural context. Cute and funny and incredibly honest, especially in its self-reflexive parent interviews, which are at their best when it doesn’t feel like a doc (and at their worst when it feels like a class presentation). The way she speaks Korean is so me.
Obviously the film's heart is in the right place, which makes it feel a little cruel to critique... though maybe that's exactly the problem: that the combination of nicecore philosophy and social justice themes amounts to a critical bulletproofing for a certain (intended) audience. The music — one of those cloying soundtracks doesn't trust the viewer to feel things the right way — reinforces the effect. Still manages to show heaps of promise for filmmaker So Yun Um, who certainly has a knack for asking the right questions.
Might just as well be up in the running for one of the most beautiful documentaries that I've seen in the past few years. On one hand you can see stories about Korean American families who've made their living as liquor store owners in South Central Los Angeles, where racial tensions between Korean Americans and African-Americans were only furthered by the 1992 Los Angeles riots. But I think that what So Yun Um does here with that context in mind can only make for something really beautiful, because it's obviously a very personal story that she's bringing to the screen but also it's a movie all about trying to understand why the world around her at the time had been…
Remarkable stuff. Tells a large story on a small canvas.
☆"That's me. I'm a liquor store baby. And I have big dreams."☆
Film Independent screener.
Before it airs on the PBS documentary program POV later this Summer, I was pleased to be able to watch the acclaimed debut feature of So Yun Um, first premiering at Tribeca and winning at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Liquor Store Dreams.
Daughter of liquor store owners from Los Angeles, the American-born Korean filmmaker So Yun Um spent her childhood and adolescence seeing firsthand the racial tension and ethnic stereotypes of Asians in this profession from the media. But while this topic begins her film, it then quickly branches to the very personal story of what it means to come from such a…
It’s about as rough around the edges as any budget-less directorial debut is bound to end up being, not to mention that documentary storytelling has never really been my thing, but at the heart of Liquor Store Dreams is a film that feels like it so very deserves to be captured. For almost every minute of the tale, it’s exceedingly clear that this is something that really means a lot to everyone who worked on it, diving into familial dynamics, race relations, the filmmaking process, and much more with its own unique and thoroughly vulnerable perspective. And it’s through this honesty that stories emerge from every frame, charting the evolution of not just the store at the center of it all,…
“thank you for trying to understand me”, feeling moved ya know
wish it went further with its political analysis - So Yun talks to an Asian-American professor but we don't get that much insight into the proliferation of Korean-owned liquor stores or the race relations at the time. Neither are there any black perspectives on the LA riots. Maybe I'm being pedantic but this is where the film fell short for me, although it definitely excelled in its self-reflexive portrayal of the father-daughter complications.
So Yun films her conversation with her dad as they watch the protests for George Floyd on the TV after locking up the liquor store early. Her dad shakes his head angrily at the footage of looting, citing his own experiences of being robbed by Black people.…
I have not been marketing for next wave a lot this year so i will write reviews now. I am literally at my laptop being all serious. And I want to remember Next Wave I am so sad this is last fest. i love the feeling of showing films that i admire so much to others. This film is by far the film I am most excited for young people to be exposed to.
No matter the form of media, I have only seen one story that exposes the racial tension between two races that are not white and that are both systemically oppressed. (that one film is called The Model Minority Myth by Jacki Boa, its incredible but only…
Embraces the stores as spaces of neighbourly spirit, while interweaving dark underlying tensions of the past and guilty silences. A documentary built around communication, weaving different experiences and stances into a potent healing, and reflective work. The quote about finding ‘new dreams beyond survival’ is one of the most potent I’ve heard in any film in recent memory. Watch this. Please.
