By JENNIE PUNTER

Friday, January 27, 2006 Posted at 1:57 AM EST

Eve & the Fire Horse
Written and directed by Julia Kwan

Starring Phoebe Jojo Kut, Hollie Lo, Vivian Wu, Lester Chit-Man Chan, Ping Sun Wong, Joseph Siu Kin Hing and Shirley Ng

Classification: PG

Rating: ***½

For her accomplished feature directorial debut, Vancouver filmmaker Julia Kwan, a "one-and-a-half" generation Chinese Canadian, draws on stories, daydreams and moments of spiritual awakening from her youth. But Eve & the Fire Horse is much more than a memory piece — although Canadians who were around age 10 in the mid-seventies (and attended Sunday school) may find the nostalgia trip an added pleasure.

Eve & The Fire Horse is about childhood and, like the best films that explore that part of life (To Kill a Mockingbird, for example), unfolds within that perspective. So often kid characters in movies, especially those from Hollywood, are just players in a grown-up story — outsmarting dumb adults, helping secure a mate for their single parent or freaking everyone out with their unnatural powers. In Eve & the Fire Horse, parents, adult relatives and teachers are characters in the children's story; it may sound like a subtle difference, but it really helps immerse the viewer in a world of imagination, discovery and the day-to-day reality of being a kid (chores, schoolwork, overhearing snippets of adult conversation).

As the film opens, nine-year-old Eve (Phoebe Jojo Kut) introduces us to her family and explains that she was born in 1966, the year of the fire horse, which comes around every 60 years and is considered unlucky. Eve loves stories — they inform both her vivid imagination and sense of self, as first revealed in a dreamy image of unwanted "fire horses" swimming — or maybe drowning — underwater.

She is also a born storyteller, stunning her classmates with her dramatic show-and-tell presentation of the Book of the Dead with Buddhist statues for visual aids . Eve's voiceover narration helps hold together the film's somewhat fragmented structure — an approach that works because it reflects how we remember childhood.
In the film's first act, Eve takes us rapidly through a series of unfortunate events: her mother (the wonderful Vivian Wu) cuts down an apple tree in the backyard and later suffers a miscarriage; Uncle No..8 (Joseph Siu Kin Hing) chokes on long-life noodles and more serious health problems are discovered; and Eve's beloved grandmother (Ping Sun Wong) collapses while watering the garden and is taken to hospital where she dies.

While the emotional impact of these serious events is most certainly felt, Kwan's tight, beautifully written screenplay finds the humour in everything, and even on the subject of death it's never dark.

After her father, Frank (Lester Chit-Man Chan) leaves for a visit to China to return grandmother to her native land, another male figure enters the house: Jesus. Eve's 11-year-old sister Karena (Hollie Lo) is summoned to the front door to give the brush-off to two men. Her mother, who doesn't understand English, thinks they are salesmen. They give her a "free gift," a book called Living Together in Heaven and Earth. Its story of Jesus and how he brings peace to the world completely engrosses Karena.

Although Eve tags along on her sister's new spiritual journey, she is more questioning, rather than simply being inspired by faith. "Are Jesus and Buddha friends?" she asks her mother, who is starting to think that perhaps two gods in the household are better than one.

Karena takes it upon herself to further Eve's Christian education, taking her to Sunday School, teaching her the proper position for praying and, eventually, creating an order — the Daughters of Perpetual Sorrow — who do good deeds, donate their birthday money and pray for all the people of the world.

Although their father is taken aback when his daughters say grace at the table, and angered when Karena won't bow to her ancestors during a Buddhist ceremony, he more or less tolerates Christianity in the household.

What he doesn't know, and what further encourages Karena, is that the furtive and constant prayers of the Daughters of Perpetual Sorrow have brought about a lucky streak. When their father agrees to donate a kidney to his ailing brother, the sisters go into misguided spiritual overdrive as their mother is called to the hospital in the middle of the night.

Teetering on the edge of tragedy, Eve & the Fire Horse of course doesn't go there, and delivers the perfect warm and glowing finale. An exceptionally talented cast — including actors from Canada, the U.S. and Hong Kong — beautiful cinematography and art direction, attention to detail, and Kwan's flawless screenplay, make Eve & The Fire Horse one of the most enchanting and memorable films made in this country.

Special to The Globe and Mail