The Motel

The Motel (2005)

Out of Place in the Middle of Nowhere.

Thirteen-year-old Ernest Chin lives and works at a sleazy hourly-rate motel on a strip of desolate suburban bi-way. Misunderstood by his family and blindly careening into puberty, Ernest befriends Sam Kim, a self-destructive yet charismatic Korean man who has checked in. Sam teaches the fatherless boy all the rites of manhood.

Date of release
2005-01-24
TMDB
6.3 / 10 (15)
Runtime
1h 15m
Genres
Drama, Comedy
Director
Michael Kang

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $51.5K
  • Budget: $250K
  • Earned 0.2× its budget

The Motel is a 2005 American comedy drama film written and directed by Michael Kang in his feature debut. The film won the Humanitas Prize in the Independent Feature Film category, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature.

Production

Michael Kang first met Ed Lin during their time together in a performance troupe, where Kang learned about Lin's plans to write The Motel when it was still in short story form. Kang said he was "inspired by the idea of exploring the worst place to go through puberty.

Of his adaptation of Lin's work, Kang said, "The two are like Rashomon companion pieces. We each deal with the subject of sexuality with unique voices and attitudes. When it came time to finish the film, I felt like it was good to put a 'based on' credit for the book despite the differences.

After a six-month search to find someone to play Ernest, Kang cast Jeffrey Chyau after finding him through a Columbia University after-school program.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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