Movie Review: Eve's poignant tale
Jan. 27, 2006. 07:35 AM
SUSAN WALKER
ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER - Toronto Star

Has there ever been a child in the cinema more burdened with guilt than Eve? Born in the year of the Fire Horse, she is astrologically preordained to bring misfortune upon her family. Sure enough, her grandmother dies; her mother suffers a miscarriage; her uncle develops a serious ailment. And then, as if traditional Chinese beliefs had not placed enough blame on her head, Eve goes to Catholic Sunday school and discovers that her very name brands her as a sinner.

Being born in the Year of the Fire Horse also confers on Eve an especially independent spirit and a stubbornness that makes it difficult for her to bow to any absolute authority. Eve is driven by an active imagination that is no refuge from the realities of growing up Chinese in 1970s Vancouver.

"I was lucky to be born at all," she says in her voice-over. Eve sees herself swimming in the river with the spirits of fire horses — children drowned, according to legend, because they were deemed to be too strong-willed.

Either blessed or cursed with an active imagination, Eve sees ominous signs of her own wrongdoing everywhere she looks. Grandma has died; so she must be at fault. Her family's Buddhist faith offers some consolation. Eve believes her grandmother is reincarnated as a goldfish, a goldfish that sings Chinese opera.

Eve's older sister Karena takes a more pragmatic approach to life in the new country. She becomes a crusader for Christ, with the devotion of a would-be saint. On the family mantel, a crucifix joins the statue of the Buddha. Karena forms a club: they will be the Girls of Perpetual Sorrow and they will actively pursue their mission to do good and recruit other children to their cause.

The girls' mother accepts their new-found religion. "I think two gods in the house are better than one." And besides, she's heard it's better to raise Christian children; they're easier to control.

Eve tries her best to be a good Catholic, but she can't help making trouble. She keeps raising issues that bring condemnation on her head. Hell seems a certainty.
In a kind of parallel world, the adults are pursuing their own difficult paths. Frank, the girls' father, is deemed unlucky — born with crooked fingers so money slips through them. His brother, the lucky one, grows rich on real estate. Over family dinners, the girls' aunt flaunts their greater prosperity.

With a keen eye for ironic detail, Julia Kwan juxtaposes Eve's vividly imagined world — where a Jesus Christ and the Buddha dance together in the living room at night — and the realities of life in a working class immigrant family where simply adjusting to a new culture brings mysteries enough.

Eve&the Fire Horse has a kind of poetry that lifts it above the typical drama of immigrant life and gives her characters a lasting poignancy.