NEXT-GENERATION SUPER-CHICK. Chinese Canadian Steph Song co-stars as Ming in director Paul Fox’s Everything’s Gone Green, a Pacific Rim themed urban comedy. (Photo courtesy of Radke Films)

From The Asian Reporter, V17, #16 (April 17, 2007), page 15.

Everything’s Gone Green
Directed by Paul Fox
Starring Paulo Costanzo and Steph Song
Produced by Radke Films and True West Films, 2006

By Ronault L.S. Catalani

Average white guy Ryan is not having a good day. He inadvertently slept in, so — thinking he’d long left for his slate-gray cubicle at his ordinary job in his nondescript downtown Vancouver office block — Ryan’s girlfriend returns mid-morning to their shared apartment to box his belongings. And to lock him out.

When Ryan wakes and whines for an explanation, she stops stuffing his stuff and tells him she’s tired of living with Ikea pressed-wood products. Besides, her life-coach says he’s "not motivated to awaken the warrior within." So Ryan’s out.

And that’s not all. Though he’s not quite out of that meaningless job, Ryan’s supervisor suspends him pending what company counselors find after "they" thoroughly examine him. It’s true, our boy’s a loser. He’s practically packed in by them — a big dead whale’s washed up on shore, his dad loses a $4.3-million-dollar lottery ticket, his city’s lost hope of attracting exiled Hong Kongers (actually their investment dollars).

Okay, Ryan wears ugly short sleeve button-downs and bad ties and white socks. But at least he’s sincere.

Director Paul Fox’s Everything’s Gone Green is taken from a story by acclaimed Canadian novelist and playwright Douglas Coupland. It stars Paulo Costanzo (from NBC’s "Joey") in the lead as dopey but cute Ryan. Rising Chinese Canadian Steph Song co-stars as Ming, lending this Pacific Rim themed urban comedy some stylish Oriental cachet. And of course to redeem our earnest main man Ryan. She pulls up in her red leather biker gear, on her red-hot Yamaha racer.

It’s a big job, but Steph Song’s our girl. Outside this film, Asian FHM magazine readers voted Ms. Song as one of the Sexiest Women in the World.

Like last-generation super-chick Michelle Yeoh, Steph Song was born in Malaysia, lived and studied in several countries. She considers Canada home. Ms. Song’s first big acting successes were in Singapore, on English-language TV. She played the lead in a number of popular programs including "Achar!" (spicy Malay condiment), a sitcom series that took second place, bested only by NBC’s "Frasier," in the 2005 New York International Television Festival. The series is now seen in 10 countries.

In Canada, Steph Song is best known for her role in the CBC’s gritty Asian mob mini-series "Dragon Boys." The program pulled in a lot of viewers and critical acclaim for many of the same reasons the Siciliano mafioso-styled "Sopranos" has taken up so much TV talk over the life of its broadcast. Good scripts, great acting, ver-ry bad guys.

Everything’s Gone Green is Ms. Song’s fifth film in three years. In War, a film directed by Phillip Atwell, scheduled for big screen release later this year, she gets a hot shot on the same big set as Hong Kong action icon Jet Li.

Everything’s Gone Green does its best to be as big a set. Director Paul Fox gets it all in. Beautiful British Columbia, dramatic mountains dropping straight into her inland Pacific Sea. B.C., with her ultra-HK-style condo towers built in anticipation of anxious immigrants avoiding heavy-handed People’s Party governance. British Columbia’s irresistible draw on Hollywood filmmakers. And of course Vancouver, B.C., continental America’s Pacific Northwest marijuana production capitol. All of it gets plenty of play in this film. Ming even gets in a soulful little soliloquy on why Chinese chicks choose white boys.

"Asian women like to find non-Asian boyfriends because it’s a way to escape the grip of our mighty two-fisted Chinese fathers." Whew.

It’s all real ambitious, but this film is at bottom basically a light romantic comedy breezing start to finish in about an hour and a half. And it’s best to enjoy the ride, like Ryan and Ming do, hair blowing free, in his goldenrod Mustang convertible, Ming’s chaperoning adorable Grandma bundled up in back.

Everything’s Gone Green opens at the Hollywood Theatre, located at 4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd. in Portland, on April 27. For more information, including complete dates and show times, call (503) 281-4215 or visit <www.hollywoodtheatre.org> or <www.everythingsgonegreen.com>.