Rating of
3/4
Come See the Paradise!
MovieAddict - wrote on 01/19/13
We all dream our American dreams
When we're awake and when we sleep
So much hope that grief belies
Far beyond the lies and sighs
Because dreams are free
And so are we!
The film takes place during WWII and portrays a bad time for US domestic policy for Japanese-Americans who were just trying to live the American Dream until the policies of the US Government took their dreams away from them as they were stripped of their property and sent to prison camps in California. Their crime: simply being of Japanese descent.
Jack McGurn (Dennis Quaid), is an Irish-American labor organizer who falls in love with Lily Kawamura (Tamlyn Tomita), his Japanese Boss’s daughter. Lily's father (Sab Shimono) does not like the white American and this forces Jack and Lily to elope in Seattle as they are forbidden from marrying under Californian law. They have a child but Jack gets into some trouble with the law while picketing at his work place, and Lily, angry that Jack has not changed his ways since the birth of their daughter, Mini, takes the child back to her family's house. Soon after, Pearl Harbor is bombed, and the Kawamuras are shuttled off to an internment camp (except for Mr. Kawamura who is believed to be a traitor for giving information to the FBI), and Jack is forced into the army and unable to help his family. The movie shows how the camps affected Lily, her family and Jack.
