• Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart
  • Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart
  • Dim Sum Take-Out

Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart

Director’s Cut

In Conversation

  • Laureen Chew is professor emerita of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University. Her areas of expertise span elementary education, ethnic studies, bilingual education, and multiculturalism in higher education.

featuring

Laureen Chew, Kim Chew, Victor Wong, Ida F.O. Chung,

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“I was filming in a Chinese home and saw all the shoes on the floor by the door. This image gave me the idea of making a movie about the people who belonged to those shoes . . . how their family lives and outside lives fit together” (Wang). Dim Sum is Wang’s one from the heart, part homage to Yasujirō Ozu, part idiosyncratic ideogram about the ways that Chinese Americans are Chinese and American. Wang elicited a marvelously nuanced performance from nonprofessional actress Kim Chew as Mrs. Tam, whose daughter Geraldine (Laureen Chew, Kim Chew’s daughter) is caught when her mother paradoxically pushes her both to marry and to stay home with her.

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Terrel Seltzer
Cinematographer
  • Michael Chin
Language
  • English and Cantonese
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 87 mins
Source
  • Strand Releasing
Followed By

Dim Sum Take-Out

Wayne Wang, United States, 1987

FEATURING
Laureen Chew
Cora Miao
Amy Hill
Joan Chen

Wang’s short film uses the female cast from Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart to contest prevalent stereotypes of Asian American women. A bittersweet, music-filled tale of five singing, screaming, dancing friends—Chinatown women who dream big.

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Wayne Wang
Cinematographer
  • Michael Chin
  • Emiko Omori
Print Info
  • Color
  • 35mm
  • 12 mins
source
  • BAMPFA