A Movie Review of Robot Stories

In 2002, a movie was released in the independent circuit that featured a predominantly Asian American cast. It was a film of superb and thoughtful writing, which really hit home on the issues of the heart and the things that bind us all together as humans. And ironically enough it was about robots.

"Robot Stories", which was directed and produced by Greg Pak, is a unique film that explores the issues of what makes us human through a multitude of angles, from family and romance to life and death. Truly entertaining in all its ways, from the opening credits to the final moments, this film is a worthwhile watch and a definite example of superb storytelling. Presenting itself as a collection of four shorter films, "Robot Stories" serves up each of its vignettes as slices of life that have unique sci-fi twists.

The first film, "My Robot Baby", centers around a young couple who seek to adopt a child, but is put through trials and tribulations as they take care of a robot baby sent to them to test their capacity of parenthood. The second film, "The Robot Fixer", tells a tale of a mother who's desperately struggling to rediscover her relationship with her dying son through his toy robot collection. The third film, "Machine Love", focuses on an android office worker who discovers more to his existence than office work. And the fourth and final film, "Clay", portrays the life of a sculpture in his last days as struggles for his right to die naturally in a world where immortality on the digital web is almost mandatory.

For what it is, which is a low-budget, non-star studded, independent work, "Robot Stories" is a triumph. Despite the presence of maybe one controversial issue throughout the film, the movie's overall writing is superb, its themes are thoughtful, and the acting of its central cast is wonderful. With its focus being mainly on the human condition as opposed to "nuts and bolts" science fiction, this film is easily appealing to both sci-fi fans and non-sci-fi fans alike.

In addition to all this, "Robot Stories" is uniquely an Asian American film where most of its cast members, including the director himself (who's part Korean), are Asian American. Being Asian American myself, not only was this quite refreshing to see, but it also brought to light the somewhat overlooked issue of Asian stereotypes in mainstream American media. On one hand, many American shows and movies try so hard to focus on the "Asian" aspect of Asians (such as portraying them as doctors, technicians or martial artists) that the human element is lost in one-dimensional stereotyping. On the other extreme, certain Asian American films could focus so hard on trying to make a political statement on the Asian American condition that the personal connection with the audience to the movie can sometimes get lost in translation.

But "Robot Stories", rather than portraying Asians in overly obvious roles (which it didn't) or for the catering of a minority's political statement (which would have been distracting), the movie did an ingenious thing by simply portraying Asians as people (except for the third film where the main character was an android). In short, the focus wasn't on the fact that nearly all of the main characters were Asian, nor was it on the idea that "Asians are people too", but rather it was a movie about people, who just happened to be Asian. This, by itself, is a stroke of brilliance and if Asian American filmmakers wanted to shed the imposed Asian stereotypes of American media, besides attempting to portray Asians through counter-stereotypes, focusing on the things that bind people together rather than on the things that tear them apart is a far better solution.

The DVD of "Robot Stores" is also jammed pack with special features such as audio commentaries by the director and the cast, an additional short movie by Mr. Pak, and alternate endings to some of the short films presented in the movie proper. With all the merits and special features given by the DVD, "Robot Stories" scores a definite four and a half out of five stars.