By Tam Nguyen, Nguoi Viet
What do you get when you mix a little girl’s love for fashion and film? Meet “How to Fight in Six Inch Heels,” a movie written by, and starring, California native Kathy Uyen, which kicks off the Viet Film Fest tonight.
Kathy Uyen, star of “How to Fight in Six Inch Heels,” said events such as the Viet Film Fest have helped in the growth of Vietnamese cinema. Photo by Tam Nguyen/Nguoi Viet.
“I always loved fashion, and when I was a little girl, I liked playing with Barbie dolls and loved to draw pictures of clothes,” she said. “Then my mom and I sewed clothes and dressed the dolls and interacted with them. This movie is like my childhood coming to life.”
“How to Fight in Six Inch Heels” is a romantic comedy that travels across the high-fashion worlds of New York and Saigon and is one of nearly 30 films that will be shown through Sunday on screens in Anaheim and Santa Ana during ViFF, as the festival is known. It’s a coming home for Uyen, who was raised in the San Jose area but traveled to Vietnam in 2008 to film “Passport to Love,” then accepted a role in “Fool for Love.”
In 2010, after wrapping work on “Fool for Love,” she began to write script of “How to Fight in Six Inch Heels.”
If things had turned out differently, Uyen might have become a designer ― “If I wasn’t acting, I would be in the fashion industry,” she said ― instead of an actress. So to write “How to Fight in Six Inch Heels,” which took three years to complete, Uyen studied the business, taking fashion classes and meeting designers to absorb as much as she could.
With her finished script, Uyen teamed with Ham Tran, who directed the movie.
“He is very passionate and has precise vision,” she said of Tran. “He sees everything in his mind, and he is also the editor. So on set, he knew how he was going to edit and everything went smoothly. I thank him a lot for pushing me to become a better actress.”
She has tales to tell of making the movie.
The most unexpected event happen during the film’s shooting in New York. “We were filming in Central Park, and it started snowing out of nowhere.” Uyen said. “We rolled with it and had to make adjustments and used the snow scene for later in the movie even though we didn’t plan for any snow in the movie.”
On set in Vietnam, there was similar unexpected trouble. “We were shooting a scene and the emergency sprinklers went off and flooded the set,” she said. The crew planned for a whole day of shooting at a hotel, but it was cut short. The scene had to be shot elsewhere, and the crew had to re-create the scene to look like the same hotel.
As a performer, and now a script writer, Uyen appreciates events such as ViFF, which gives Vietnamese actors and filmmakers a chance to get noticed. “It increases Vietnamese cinema as a whole and not just actors,” Uyen said. “I am proud of being part of the growth of Vietnamese cinema in the past several years.”
ViFF, in summary:
In all, 21 short films and eight features from Vietnam, the United States and other countries will be screened at the UltraLuxe Cinemas at the Anaheim GardenWalk and at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana.
After some screenings, the audience will be able to interact with cast members. Tonight’s screening of “How to Fight in Six Inch Heels” begins at 7:30 and is followed by a question-and-answer session. Director Tran, producer Timothy Linh Bui, Uyen and actor Phan Anh all are scheduled to attend.
Since 2003, ViFF has been sponsored by the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association. The festival previously was held every two years, but it now has become an annual event. Visit www.vietfilmfest.com for information about the event, including film schedule and buying tickets.
