TIFF Next Wave 2023 Review: Liquor Store Dreams

Korean-American filmmaker So Yun Um turns the camera on her family for the insightful and assuredly complex personal essay film Liquor Store Dreams.

A self-identifying “liquor store baby,” So Yun grew up with parents – father Hae Sup and mother Hye Sun – owning an alcohol peddling convenience store on Inglewood Avenue in Los Angeles. With her parents constantly working, she was pretty much raised on television and cinema, developing a love for filmmakers like Justin Lin and Spike Lee. But through her cinematic journeys, So Yun noticed something that uncomfortably hit home in films like Menace II Society, Do the Right Thing, and The Doom Generation: the stereotype of the angry Korean shopkeeper that owns a liquor store in predominantly racialized communities.

With an eye towards both history and the present, So Yun attempts to not only unravel the genesis of the stereotype and deep divisions between Korean and black/brown communities, but also inroads being made by those who want to strengthen those ties during increasingly troubled times that further threaten to marginalize non-white, impoverished peoples. Liquor Store Dreams also requires So Yun to ask for a lot of introspection from her parents, who traditionally don’t like to talk about unpleasant topics.

The personal nature of Liquor Store Dreams is resounding, as is Um’s profiling of a Skid Row shopkeep who left a dream corporate job to run the family business. It seems downright cathartic. But there are times when Liquor Store Dreams feels like it’s biting off more than it can chew, particularly when more racially motivated protests and COVID begin to take their toll on society. There’s almost too much for Um to cover, but Liquor Store Dreams remains a thriving and poignant piece of criticism, reflection, and familial love. It’s great viewing for anyone interested in cultural and racial relations in any major North American city, not just Um’s California hometown.

Liquor Store Dreams screens as part of the 2023 TIFF Next Wave Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto on Friday, April 14 at 5:00pm, featuring an in-person Q&A with filmmaker So Yun Um.