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Debut, The

Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Williams on August 23rd, 2003

Overall

Film

Video

Audio

Extras

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Released Tuesday, September 9, 2003

Probably very few of you ever heard of �The Debut.� I know I never heard of it until asked to review it. But surprisingly this is considered a landmark film for many reasons, one of which is that in certain film festivals in 2000 it was chosen over �Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon� as best of the year!

The Debut is a film that explores the experience of children of immigrants, in this case Filipino, as they try to establish their identity amidst the pressures of their families to uphold native traditions ver…us their desire to �fit in� to the North American culture. Ben (Dante Basco) is a young man who contemplates his future post high school. He wishes to attend an art school, which is in opposition to his father�s wish for him to attend medical school. Both of these main premises emerge on the night of Ben�s sister�s 18th birthday (a �Debutante ball� or �Debut�).

There are a number of strong plotlines in the movie. One of the most striking is the desire of Ben�s father for Ben to have a better life than he did. Given that this is almost formulaic in this type of movie, the unique spin this time is that as the movie progresses, we learn that Ben�s grandfather is bitterly disappointed in his own son�s (Ben�s father) path in life which he is forced to acknowledge in the end of the movie. The other really interesting angle that the movie plays with is that Ben is so worried that his family�s traditions and customs will appear �weird� to his white friends. However, throughout the film whenever his friends are exposed to cultural pieces of Ben�s heritage they are very interested and accepting of him and his family. By the midpoint of the movie his white friends feel more comfortable at the Debut than Ben does.

Much like �My Big fat Greek Wedding� any child of an immigrant family will be able to relate (to one extent or another) to what Ben is going through. I know I did.

The acting in �The Debut� ranges from solid performances from veteran actors, such as legendary Filipino actor Eddie Garcia, to quite cheesy attempts which are on display every time Ben�s �white friends� are on the set. There are some dance scenes which range from traditional Filipino dances (which are really impressive to look at) to some modern dancing which leaves a little to be desired (kind of reminiscent of Stifler�s dance routine in American Wedding).

Audio

The English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround track is up to par with good use of the bass effects in the dance scenes. The voices are quite crisp and clear although the same cannot always be said for the music. At times there is some distortion of the background music especially when the dance music is used for the �dance-off� scene.

Video

This disc sports a very good 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. The picture and colors are quite sharp and vivid, although there were some scenes that occur in the hallway of the school that were dark and grainy at times; this made it somewhat difficult to follow the action. There was no noticeable compression artifacting.

Special Features

This is where this disc shines. There is an interesting and informative commentary track with the director and writer (Gene Cajayon and John Manal Castro). There are seven deleted scenes and a gag reel. The deleted scenes add a bit more depth to the relationship between Ben and his sister but nothing that alters the overall feel of the film. The gag reel is mildly entertaining with missed lines and poor line deliveries, but Jackie Chan outtakes these are not. There are two short films by the director (the version of �The Debut� that he shopped around to the studios hoping to get financing for the full version) and writer (a �mockumentary� of a Filipino gang member which was pretty funny).

Four featurettes also mark this disc � a description of the making of the movie, a look at the reviews that the film received from various movie festivals, and a look at the art, music and actors in the film.

The story of how this movie was made could easily be the premise of a movie on its own. I believe that this may be the first movie shot in North America with a predominately Asian cast and crew. This movie took 10 (yes I said 10!) years to get from the initial idea to the final product on film. The hardships included initial promised financial supports that eventually fizzled out. The creative team then tried a grassroots approach by addressing the Filipino community to ask for financial support (they money they collected turned out to be less than the cost of traveling to ask for the support!). At one point Gene Cajayon pulled a Kevin Smith and used his credit cards to fund the project. Despite the financial burdens, there was such a strong belief in this picture that the crew and actors took cuts in pay to finish it. Now that�s something you don�t hear to often from Hollywood.
The next featurette chronicled the film as it made the rounds at film festivals to glowing reviews. In particular at the Hawaii festival it was voted best picture over �Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon!� It was made even more impressive by the fact that the film wasn�t even supposed to play at that festival.
The third featurette focused on the 4 Basco brothers whom are all on screen at one point or another. This is a very short feature that showed them goofing around with a reporter, and while uninformative, it did show that these guys generally like each other and tried their best to make this movie something special, which they did.
The last featurette focused on the music and art used in the film. There was a lot of thought put initially into the separation of traditional influences from the modern, but as the film progressed, a slow mixing of both modern and traditional dance and music mirrored the process which Ben was experiencing.

The menus are designed to appear as a photo collage of scenes from �The Debut� which flow quite easily when moving back and forth in the menu. The TV spots and trailers are also included.

Final Thoughts

This could be classified as �a coming of age� movie by some and as a �chick flick� by others. But as �chick flicks� go, this one has enough to keep almost everyone interested as it has very good pacing and some decent dialogue. The extras are quite good and really make the viewer appreciate the difficulty and hardship that was involved in the making of this influential film.

Special Features List