| | | A New Comedy from the Makers of Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl & Me and You and Everyone We Know.
Features: DVD
Puberty sucks, and nobody knows it better than 13-year-old Ernest Chin (Jeffrey Chyau). As he watches guests come and go, Ernest finds himself forever stuck at his family's hourly-rate motel, where he divides his time between taking orders from his overbearing mom, cleaning up after whatever miscreants the motel may attract, and longing for the girl of his dreams, 15-year-old Christine (Samantha Futerman). When charismatic Sam Kim checks into the motel, fatherless Ernest is taken under his wing and hustled toward manhood, for better or worse. This comedy is by Michael Kang.
"...the ingredients of this coming-of-age fable are individually familiar, but you rarely see them come together so well." Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
"An effective, biting look at a typically dreadful childhood..." Martha Fischer, Cinematical
"Like the best independent films, The Motel realizes that life is made up of minor pleasures and tiny epiphanies..." Nathan Rabin, The Onion A.V. Club
Editor's Note
IN THEATRES JUNE 28, 2006:Directed by Michael Kang, this feature film uses the unlikely locale of a sleazy pay-by-the-hour motel as the setting for a coming-of-age tale. Jeffrey Chyau stars as Ernest Chin, a 13-year-old who works and lives in a seedy establishment off a suburban highway. Not surprisingly, Ernest doesn't exactly fit in at school. It is this sense of isolation that draws him to Sam Kim, a Korean motel guest with a wealth of life experience to offer.
| Features | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | The Motel - DVD By: Don Willmott - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 2/10/2007 4:19 AM | |
Check in here to remember everything bad about your teen years. A welcome addition to the "awkward adolescence" genre, The Motel captures a small slice of a boy's excruciating puberty with all its frustrations, humiliations, and humbling realizations. A 2005 Sundance favorite, it's a delicate mix of humor and pathos with a gritty indie feel. Ernest (Jeffrey Chyau), age 13, is a chubby Chinese-American boy who lives in his family-owned motel with his perpetually angry and demanding mother (Jade Wu), his aged grandfather, and his bratty but cute younger sister....read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Universal (Music) |
| Release Date: 1/30/2007 |
| Running Time: 76 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2006 | | Catalog ID: 3145 | | UPC: 00660200314521 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Nominee (2007) | | | Independent Spirit, Michael Kang, et. al., Best First Feature | |
Winner (2005) | | | Independent Spirit, Gina Kwon, Producers Award |
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| | Professional Reviews | Box Office
3 stars out of 5 -- "[Chyau's] deadpan expressions and youthful pithiness is as earnest as his character's name." 09/01/2006 p.113Entertainment Weekly
"[A] sweet 'n' sour comedy....Endearing..." 02/02/2007 p.113 San Francisco Chronicle 8 of 10
Today's arrival of Michael Kang's pleasant and surprisingly hard-edged coming-of-age indie film also speaks to the sorry state of independent film distribution in this country. "The Motel" closed the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival in March, 19 months ago. What took so long?...As a strategy for making an indie film, shooting on basically one location is a good one, and Kang does well in making a small story seem bigger. Some plot elements and insights are fairly predictable, others are not. Perhaps "The Motel" meanders a bit too much -- hard to do in a 76-minute film -- but it is an engaging little movie. - G. Allen Johnson
Los Angeles Times 9 of 10
Like a teenager struggling to stick out and fit in at the same time, Michael Kang makes his feature debut with "The Motel," a well-worn coming-of-age tale enlivened by pungent detail and a sharp visual sense...In the kind of offhand but carefully considered touch that lifts "The Motel" above a crowded pack, an anxious Ernest, whom Sam has ill-advisedly brought along on his home invasion, catches sight of a rack of carpet slippers, then looks unsteadily at his own feet. Perhaps he's worried about leaving tracks or wondering if stepping into Sam's shoes is really such a good idea. Thankfully, "The Motel" doesn't make too much of such fleeting moments. - Sam Adams
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