While he’s adamant that nothing beats the in-theater movie experience, director Steven K. Tsuchida also embraces what he deems a substantive silver lining in streaming cinema as his second Netflix feature, A Tourists’ Guide To Love, is scheduled to break next week (4/21). “On day one with Netflix, 200 countries are able to see your work,” Tsuchida noted, providing an opportunity which he values–namely a story and its characters garnering a widespread global exposure that wasn’t imaginable some 10 years ago.
All the more gratifying is that for A Tourist’s Guide To Love, this window to the world will offer a view of an Asian-American protagonist who marks a departure from the rom-com norm–as does the movie’s setting. Upon reading the script by Eirene Tran Donohue, Tsuchida was immediately drawn to the prospect of focusing on an Asian-American lead character–even rarer, a Vietnamese American. And most appealing to Tsuchida was to have this character, a man named Sinh Thach from an underrepresented ethnic community, portrayed as handsome, sexy, charismatic, witty and sensitive–conventional rom-com qualities that are unconventional in media depictions for a character of Vietnamese origin.
Scott Ly portrays Thach, an expat tourist guide, who introduces a group of vacationers–including American Amanda Riley played by Rachael Leigh Cook (also one of the film’s producers)–to the wonders of Vietnam. Riley, who’s a travel executive, has experienced a recent unexpected breakup with a long-time boyfriend. She accepts an assignment to pose as a vacation goer while actually operating undercover to learn about the tourist industry in Vietnam–specifically about Thach’s employer, a tour bus/sight-seeing business which her company is interested in acquiring. The sojourn takes a couple of different turns, including a decision to reroute the bus to explore life and love off the beaten path. It’s a path with another detour, one where Thach and Riley end up intersecting romantically, resulting in a life-changing vacation for both.
The rest of the cast includes Missi Pyle, Ben Feldman, Glynn Sweet, Alexa Povah, Jacqueline Correa, Nondumiso Tembe, Andrew Barth Feldman, Morgan Dudley, Quinn Truc Tran and Nsut Le Thien.
Tsuchida also welcomed the opportunity to show the beauty and richness of Vietnam, breaking the stereotypes which conjure up notions of a Third World country, and of course the devastation of the Vietnam War. Tsuchida wanted to show how far the country has come over the past 30-plus years while also reflecting its thousands of years of culture.
A Tourist’s Guide To Love was the first international production to shoot in Vietnam since the global COVID pandemic. Lensing locations ranged from Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon), Hoi An (the nation’s central coast), Da Nang (a coastal city in central Vietnam known for its beaches), the country’s capital Ha Noi, and Ha Giang (situated on the banks of the Lo River in the nation’s Northeast region). Just as the tour in the storyline went the less traveled road through the country, so too did the movie’s shooting to an extent, showing places new to American and European audiences in particular. And, noted Tsuchida, the journey added much to the project. “There’s something about a romantic comedy that takes us to faraway lands that adds to the romance,” he said, particularly as experienced by an American woman who winds up exposed to a wide spectrum of Vietnam.
The story behind A Tourist’s Guide To Love is based on writer Donohue’s personal travel experiences. Years ago she got dumped by her long-term boyfriend and decided to visit family in Vietnam. She went to a local Vietnamese dive bar during that trip and sat next to a Canadian surfer/backpacker who would become her husband and father to her kids. In that vein, Tsuchida related that beyond the movie’s allure in terms of giving attention to underrepresented people and shedding new light on a country, it should be noted that there is a universality to the proceedings which too is valuable. “Everyone has had a relationship in their life. A rom-com is about people coming together. It’s also about watching somebody discover themselves before they fall in love with the other person. I’m hoping this movie gets people to think about themselves, the choices they make.” Even in the confines of an enjoyable romantic comedy, art and entertainment can open up the opportunity for people to reflect on their lives, to be happy, meditative and contemplative.
This applies to cast and crew as well, added Tsuchida who recalled standing in a rice patty field in Vietnam hours from a major city. The director was there with about 100 people. He would probably never be in that village again–or with these people–so he stopped a beat so that he could live in that moment, cherish it and thus better remember it. Filming records that moment while “giving us the opportunity to go around the world, work with so many different people and cultures. We need to remember and value that.”
Commercialmaking roots
Tsuchida’s body of work includes the alluded to prior Netflix film, Resort To Love, and episodic TV fare ranging from Community to New Girl, Inside Amy Schumer, Younger, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Grown-ish, Cobra Kai, 9-1-1 and Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens.
Tsuchida’s creative journey actually began as an advertising agency art director, working at such shops as JWT, FCB, McCann Erickson and Deutsch. Most of his tenure as an art director was at the latter agency where he was inspired by creative director Craig Gillespie who decided to quit a comfortable gig and pursue a directorial career. At the time Gillespie had a young family and Tsuchida admired his decision to take that chance on an uncertain future. As an agency creative, Tsuchida wound up working with director Gillespie who of course went on to become a world-class filmmaker.
Gillespie’s leap of faith in part motivated Tsuchida to act on his directorial aspirations. He enrolled at Art Center College of Design to work towards an MFA in film. Tsuchida then directed commercials for a number of years, eventually diversifying into shorts, TV and film. He continues to be repped in the ad arena as a director on the roster of B-Reel Films.
Commercialmaking provided an education that prepared Tsuchida for film and television. The director observed that spot endeavors helped hone his craft and refine his creative vision, along with fine tuning his logistical skills spanning production around the world. While the lion’s share of his commercial work has been in comedy, it was over a wide range including deadpan, slapstick, physical and more nuanced. This helped spark some short film fare, including the comedy A Ninja Pays Half My Rent, which made the cut at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. There he met the creators of The Sarah Silverman Show which eventually led to episodic directing for that series, starting his path into television.
