Double Happiness is writer/director Mina Shum's debut feature, a knowing comedy about Jade Li (Sandra Oh), a twenty-two-year-old aspiring actress struggling to balance the traditional expectations of her Chinese family with the realities of living in the western world. Jade is an irreverent, cheeky Chinese-Canadian still living at home with her parents and younger sister.

When her family decides she's old enough to date, the matchmaking begins and Jade is set up with Andrew, a handsome Chinese lawyer. Afraid of being disowned by her father, Jade agrees to this arrangement, especially if it means that her family will leave her alone to pursue her passion for acting.

But complications arise when she meets Mark, a white university student. As their relationship grows, Jade struggles to keep Mark at arm's length, trying to walk a line between her two worlds. She must answer the question she's been trying to avoid: you've got one life to live, what's it gonna be?

Outrageously pretentious/pathetic as the scene might seem, it is nonetheless the truth. When I first left my parent's home at age eighteen, I packed my Star Wars blanket under my arm, shoved it into the trunk of my overstuffed car, full of memorabilia from this little girl's closet and drove off into the night towards the apathetic tomb which was to be my first and last basement suite apartment.

When I arrived there, my roommate Susan (with whom I had worked at McDonald's) had already moved in the one chair that she owned. Susan was nowhere in sight and I immediately nestled my butt into that chair trying to find the right position, the right angle to sit so that this might feel like home. And while I endeavored this acrobatic feat, one cold clear thought waved like a banner in my mind: YOU ARE BORN ALONE and YOU DIE ALONE. I cried my emptiness into the Star Wars blanket and knew then that this was a terrible morbid thought. But I couldn't help thinking it anyway. And even now ten years later, I occasionally allow myself the indulgence of diving into that truth.

But I did know then, that I wanted to tell this story. That other humans might need to know that they aren't alone. That many have felt the pain of growing up and then breaking up with family. The family is your first love, and thus ultimately they must be your first heartbreak.

I wanted to make the film as a portraiture told in large geometric shapes. Each scene was constructed as a visual essence. For instance, the lazy susan shot, with its slightly wide lens and its dizzying chaotic movement beset suited a gossipy dinner scene. I think what happens to Jade is an accumulation of catalysts and reactions that are often quite everyday, but because of who she is, because of her constant negotiation with her many worlds, these everyday events impact on her growth tremendously. I knew that since this work is quite close to my experience, I needed to capture the essence of real life, not document it. And it is through the construction of expressionistic images that this essence is created.

I also felt it was important to create a new type of female hero. One who's smart, irreverent, got her shit down, but is also vulnerable to her heart and ambitions. She's goofy at times, and can even be downright mean. But Jade is the type of hero that has been affected by her environment; she has not come out unscathed. Yet she's just trying to get by, find love and her place in the world.

Double Happiness is her journey towards that. And through this journey I hope that a few eighteen year old girls might not feel so alone, that if the courage is lacking to follow one's dreams, perhaps, and I realize that this is a very high hope, perhaps Jade can give them that courage.

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