LOS ANGELES — Based on a true story, “Rosemead” sees Lucy Liu transform into Irene, an ailing woman who takes drastic measures to protect her troubled teenage son.
In the film, as the son’s dark obsessions grow and time runs out, Irene is forced to make impossible choices: how far will she go and what is she willing to sacrifice?
“Irene is a very complicated person,” Liu told Spectrum News. “It shows the depth of humanity to understand the different levels of what she was struggling with … not just physically, but also emotionally.”
In “Rosemead,” Irene experiences a lot of loss in her family, in her life and a loss of control with what is happening with her son.
“I just find that there is so much about being not just a person but also being a parent … and being a woman who is trying to balance all of it. It becomes a landslide in the end,” said Liu.
“Rosemead” director Eric Lin stated he was deeply moved by the Hang family’s tragic story when he first heard it. Growing up Taiwanese American in Southern California, Lin understood the roots of Irene’s emotional journey because of his own experiences with his sibling’s mental health struggles. Like many minorities, Lin understood how shame and assumptions about mental illness could drive Irene to hide her son Joe’s condition from everyone, but in doing so she isolated them from any support that could have helped them when they needed it most.
It’s why Liu said “Rosemead” is such an important film.
“This movie was very difficult to make. It was very difficult to finance, and we want to share it with our community,” she said. “We think it has a universal message. Reflecting on it, it’s just something that we don’t have in our lexicon of movies … in general … so it is important to mark that milestone.”
In her interview with Spectrum News, Liu also praised Frank Shyong, who wrote “A dying mother’s plan: Buy a gun. Rent a hotel room. Kill her son,” the LA Times column the film is based on.
“He just did such a wonderful job of personalizing his own emotions and his own personal journey,” she said. “That’s really what caught me off guard because normally when you read something that’s newsworthy, it’s very factual, and I respected that so much because he sort of opened himself up to who he was outside of just being a reporter.”
“Rosemead” is Lawrence Shou’s first film. He plays the son Joe.
“He was stunning in his honesty and his dedication to the movie,” she said. “He’s just an authentic and wonderful young man.”
“Rosemead” opens Dec. 12 in Los Angeles. It stars Lucy Liu, Lawrence Shou, Orion Lee, Jennifer Lim, Madison Hu and James Chen.
Click the arrow above to watch the full interview with Liu.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source spectrumnews1.com ’
