Siao Yu

Why are Chinese women directors so drawn to illegal immigrant/Green Card movies set in New York? After Mabel Cheung and Clara Law comes Sylvia Chang with this modest adaptation of a novel by Geling Yan, reciting the familar litany of dead-end jobs and marriages of convenience. Siao Yu (newcomer Liu, promising) has to cohabit with her paid-for Italian-American husband (Travanti, impressive) to convince the Immigration Department that the marriage isn't phoney. The predictable complications include her growing to like him, her long-term boyfriend Jiang getting ratty and the husband having a guilty secret in his closet. Sensitive, decent, fatally dull.