Hollywood movie The Harvest – a film focused on a Hmong-American community – is set to release in Theaters on 12 February 2023.
Thanks to the success of Asian-American movies like Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Farewell, Asian actors have established themselves as potential stars in the film industry. Following their success, The Harvest – written, directed, and acted by Southeast Asian-Americans – will be released shortly on February 12, 2023.
The film will focus on the friction between Hmong and American culture, portraying how similar yet different the Hmong community is compared to American’s stereotypic beliefs about “Asian” culture.
The movie features Doua Moua as the character “Thai”, an aspiring writer who visits his parents and old friends – only to find he must deal with his stubborn and ailing father who resists medical treatment. Thai must act to help his resistant father, but this conflict also provides an opportunity to reconnect with him.
Thai moved out of the Hmong community when he had the opportunity to be a writer in the San Francisco Bay area. After returning to his family for a visit, he discovers some of his family member’s envy towards his new life and his obligations to follow the traditional Hmong culture which he left behind.
The director, Caylee So, was born in a refugee camp in 1981 when her family was fleeing the Pol Pot’s murderous regime in Cambodia. The movie’s writer and lead actor is Doua Moua, a Thai-American who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand while his family fled Laos in 1987.
Caylee So is most known for directing the musical film In the Life of Music (2018). Doua Moua, is known for his role has a Hmong gang member in “Gran Torino” and as Po in “Mulan (2020).”
There is currently no information on whether or not The Harvest will release in Laos.
