AFFD 2011: Dance To the SAIGON ELECTRIC Trailer

Managing Editor; Dallas, Texas (@peteramartin)
AFFD 2011: Dance To the SAIGON ELECTRIC Trailer

Following in the hallowed traditions of Flashdance, Save the Last Dance for Me, and Step Up, the new film from Stephane Gauger (The Owl and the Sparrow) and production house Chanh Phuong Films (backers of The Rebel and Clash) earns an appreciative nod for its street-level treatment of teen dance movie cliches.

All the familiar elements are present: innocent small town girl in a big city, rebellious friend from the wrong side of the tracks who falls for a rich boy, a dance crew facing off against their mean-spirited rivals, evil developers threatening to take away the community center where appealing, well-behaved kids practice their dance moves. It's romance and drama and, at this point, kind of a hoary formula, but the film plays against expectations with its two lead characters.

Mai, a virtuous virgin and traditional dancer who has come to Saigon to audition for a dance school, neither gives up her chastity nor becomes a hip hop dancer herself; she sticks to her values and her ribbon dancing. And "bad" girl Kim doesn't suddenly transform into a wholesome, demure caricature; she remains rebellious and outspoken, and sinks all of her anger and energy into her dancing.

In a post-screening Q&A in Dallas yesterday, Gauger said that hip hop dancing is a relatively new phenomena in Vietnam, so some of the story elements that feel quite familiar to audiences in North America and Europe are being freshly experienced there. While Van Trang, who plays Mai, is an experienced actress, Gauger chose to cast real-life dancers for other key roles. First-timer Quynh Hoa is a feisty spark plug as Kim, and she rewards the risk of casting an untested actress in a major role.

Saigon Electric premiered at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival in March and since then has been playing the festival circuit. It only had one screening at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, but it will be opening theatrically in Dallas and other U.S. cities on October 7, and I'm sure other distribution deals are in the pipeline. In the meantime, you can watch the trailer below.

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