"Year of the Fish" is a charming Cinderella story, as well as another movie about the plight of illegal immigrants - this time Chinese in New York.
Using a similar technique of animating film as was used in "A Scanner Darkly", "Year of the Fish" has a dreamlike quality even at its darkest moments.
Ye Xian (An Nguyen) is a very pretty young woman (17, 18 if anyone asks) who has been smuggled into the United States and finds herself at a distant relative's "massage" parlor. She is also a nice girl, with all of the meanings I can think of for the term. The relative Mrs. Su (Tsai Chin) is a particularly unpleasant woman who throws wonderful tantrums. When Ye Xian refuses to "give massage" she becomes the one who cleans, cooks and does all of the crappy jobs at the parlor - essentially an indentured servant. On her first day at the market, with two of the other girls, she is given a fish by a mysterious fortune teller, Auntie Yaga (Randall Duk Kim, who also plays a few other characters). She is told that the fish will bring her luck.
Since we all know how Cinderella works that's all I have to say about this movie except that it is a charming film that gives hope through magic.
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