Season 2, Ep. 4: Almost Perfect
This week's episode is about Bertha Bay-Sa Pan's Almost Perfect from 2011, a romantic comedy starring Kelly Hu and Ivan Shaw. We've talked about how uncommon it is to have a fully-fleshed-out love story between two Asian American characters in film -- and how it's even rarer it is for those couples to actually have chemistry past a few simple meet-cute moments, only because so many elements have to come together in a film (acting, writing, directing, ample screen time, sometimes movie-star hotness) to get an audience to really root for a couple onscreen. Because of this, even just six years ago, Almost Perfect seemed like an anomaly. Brian was charmed by the effortless charm of Ivan Shaw's Dwayne, who quickly sweeps Kelly Hu's Vanessa off her feet. Ada really liked how he fixed stuff without asking. This was the work of a cast/crew who really understood what beats they needed to hit to make us believe we were in a romantic comedy -- and sure, call it a formula, but believe we did. Saturday School is a podcast where we teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. Season 2 explores Asian American romance in film.