Touch

Running time: 109 mins

Manicure and marriage advice - $10.

Brendan is a tall, handsome auto-mechanic who desperately needs his career-driven wife to notice him again. After his wife claims that he has dirty hands, he timidly walks into a Vietnamese-owned nail salon and braves the jeers of women workers. Tam, a newly-hired manicurist, tends to his hands and civilly listens to his confessions. Turns out her healing touch is priceless.

Despite the meaning of Tam's Vietnamese name, "inner strength," she is fragile and broken. She needs someone or something to help her pick up the pieces. This film pays tribute to filial Asian culture, while it seduces with its sensuous scenes of forbidden fantasies. Touch truly teaches the tale of love.

- Athena Chow

Sponsored by House of Siam