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Shadow of the Dragon by Rock - Drama - 16-year old Vietnamese-American Danny Vo tries to resolve conflicts between the values of his Vietnamese traditional family and his new American way of life. When his cousin from a refugee camp travels to America in hopes of a better life, it only gets worse. 130 pages - pdf, format
This screenplay, I'm particularly proud of for some reason, maybe because of its length (lol), idk. There's really no need to critique the actual story, because it's based on the wonderful novel by Sherry Garland, though you can if you want to. Mostly, I need critiquing on the writing and dialogue, any grammatical errors and any changes that would help make the script better. I'd really appreciate that.
Anyhow, I hope you all enjoy it.
My scripts:
Façade: In a "film noir" set in the 1950's, a detective investigates the murder of a teenage boy in the quintessential 50's American suburbs, and as he slowly peels back the veneer of the picture perfect family, he realizes nothing is what it seems, unaware of what secrets he will uncover.
Hi, thanks for taking the time to read it, especially because it is pretty lengthy. I tried as hard as I could to cut as much stuff from the original novel without drastically changing the plot or storyline. This is the best I could've done as of yet.
I'll take note of all your critique, thanks a lot.
My scripts:
Façade: In a "film noir" set in the 1950's, a detective investigates the murder of a teenage boy in the quintessential 50's American suburbs, and as he slowly peels back the veneer of the picture perfect family, he realizes nothing is what it seems, unaware of what secrets he will uncover.
Now Rocky lad. I'm finally on it after much faffing, excusing and all that palava. Anyway, I finally got the Internet sorted so I'm back.
So, I was thinking about it actually. Your script that is. I was thinking about that too but I digress....
This could be very good. It's bloody nice to see a story about the Vietnamese that isn't about the war. If you're doing something new and fresh for folks then you're doing something right.
So there.
Now, where was I? Ah yes...
As I've said it's way too novelish rather than scriptish. I push that one with character descriptions but that's allowed if it sums up an image in the mind. For describing action, no matter how low key, you need to stick to the straight present tense none fluffy type of stuff. I'm sure there's examples where I've digressed from this but on the whole most would agree most of mine is on the ball.
I only tell you all this so you understand I do actually know what I'm talking about here.
Reading that back and looking back at the script that's unfair. To qualify: a lot of it is very good. It's just the novel stuff lessens the good stuff.
I'd also say something I don't normally. A lot of your regular action description is too passive.
Normally I'm okay with that as it can't be active all the time. But, there's too much here, in my humble.
I've nearly finished. I've really enjoyed it so far Rock. I'll be back on later with the last. Good work.
If you cleaned up your novelish type prose you'd have a much better script . 'nuff said. So we'll move on.
If it's not too much trouble, though, could you locate any specific examples of the novelish stuff and passive action, because if I look through it, I wouldn't be able to find any. I wanna see what you see as novelish so I know precisely what I need to work on. Thanks!
My scripts:
Façade: In a "film noir" set in the 1950's, a detective investigates the murder of a teenage boy in the quintessential 50's American suburbs, and as he slowly peels back the veneer of the picture perfect family, he realizes nothing is what it seems, unaware of what secrets he will uncover.
Okay. Finally done. Sorry it took so long to get a review to you. Honestly, this was an especially difficult read for me. It wasn't bad. On the contrary, I commend you for taking on something like this. At this point, I think it's beyond my skill level and generally not in the top tier of my interests. I'm still trying (or rather not trying) to grow out of blood and guts. That's what I enjoy but I'm human and watch many different kinds of films so I certainly can't discredit these kinds of more politically/culturally oriented stories. I'm also assuming this is something more personal. Am I right?
I found this difficult to read because it was very slow. First off, it was long but, unlike most scripts, this wasn't the primary reason I found it slow. The primary reason is that the content and subject matter is extremely dense. I mean, I wouldn't know where to begin on writing about a refugee's struggle to adapt to a new environment. Honestly, I think it's a subject that's too dense to be able to capture all of its facets in one film. I think this is what you've tried to do. I'd break the story down a lot at this point.
The first act is the slowest. First off, it takes too long for Sang Le to be introduced. Second, it's the most general. The first act pretty much tries to capture everything he faces as a refugee, namely the language barrier. This gets very repetitive. I imagine you could establish this in one scene and leave off from there. Same with getting a job. The instance at the grocery store was very well done and was a good transition into what I personally felt was the main premise of the story: Sang Le's relations with the gang. I think this should be the primary focus of your story. You can lose some of the subterfuge, especially things like Hong's crush on Danny and his and Calvin's science project. I'd also beef up Danny's relationship with Tiffany. You can lose all the stuff of his being shy. I don't think it's all that important as that segment is over pretty quick and their relationship is key to Danny's character arc.
Overall, break things down. A lot of repetition here. You don't need to bang everything into our heads. It's not subtly you're lacking. Just simplicity. It doesn't take much to get certain messages across. Otherwise, it's a matter of choosing which scenes and subplots are necessary and which ones are simply icing on the cake, so to speak. I also thought the ending was a bit slow but not for the same reasons. I think Danny's breaking away from Tiffany after Sang Le's death lasts too long; given the impact the death has on Danny, I don't think he'd give Tiffany as much attention as he does, especially considering the fact that she threatens to deny seeing Frank. There's also no reason you need to hold off on revealing Frank as the murderer.
The writing itself was pretty good. I thought Ba was a little stereotypical. Her and Sang Le share a lot of characteristics but unlike Sang Le, she's lived in the States for some time. Yet none of that seems to show. I understand she's meant to be extremely traditional and loyal to her roots but there's really not much else to her. I'd like to have seen a more "grandmotherly" side to her. As of now, she seems to just be a representation of Vietnamese values and not much of her own person. That was my only issue with the characters really although Sang Le could probably be a little less passive. He seems to shrug Danny off a couple times rather than get in his face about his issues with Cobra. I don't know. Maybe that's his character. I could go either way, to be honest.
Anyway, a decent effort overall but way too dense and somewhat unfocused. Plenty to work with though. I wouldn't call this a base. It's far more mature than that. Still, a lot you can do from this point on.
Finished it. Good story with very real characters. I can imagine it would make a very watchable film.
To me the opening few pages have to be as good as they can be or your reader will put it down and walk away. This for example is overwriting
Quoted from SOTD
their thin wire shopping carts filled to the brim with goods.
We all know shopping baskets are made of 'thin wire' so you could lose them two words.
Quoted from SOTD
Doesn’t want to be here grocery shopping with his mother.
Tell us what he does rather than what he thinks.
Quoted from SOTD
INT. DANNY’S APARTMENT - DAY
You then went on to describe what was going on in several rooms. Underwriting, you need make a scene for each room.
Now then, examples of novelish stuff as requested.
Quoted from SOTD
He presses the picture up against his smooth, muscular cheek. His eyes close as he enters Dreamland.
Quoted from SOTD
The clouds are gray. Sunlight struggles to shine through the thick fluffiness.
Do we need to know? I don't mention the weather or sky unless sunlight is pouring into a room or it's hammering down with rain. The question is, does it affect the story? If not dump it, in my humble.
There's nothing actually wrong with either of those. It's just a bit too novelish for me.
Quoted from SOTD
The once beautiful city of Hue...destroyed. Bomb-stricken and war-torn by the communists in the Vietnam War. Despite the devastation, the air is bright and clear. Flowers find their way to reach the sun. A lonely water buffalo trudges into the pond. Chickens prowl the courtyard where Bà sits, weeping. Danny’s mother and another woman, Bà’s daughter and Sang Le’s mother, comforts her.
You need to set the scene. But, there's way too much there and it reads like the opening chapter of a book to me.
Quoted from SOTD
The pale pink petals reaching out, just waiting to be touched.
I could go on. If it's not actually action or reaction or event I'd question if it has to be there.
Hope that doesn't sound too bitchy to you. I'm probably in a bit of a bad mood. Well sad mood actually but then that's my problem.
To be fair to you you've done a hell of a job here and it was on the whole pretty well done. Good work fella, keep it up.
hey guys, thanks so much for reading it, i know it must've been a challenge. It may have been slow or repetitive because, well I tried to adapt the novel as close as possible, so i kept many little things in there like the science project, etc, because in the book, it led to other more important actions occurring, so it was easier to keep it in there to transition to some scenes I wanted in there, if that makes any sense at all. Thanks for reading and commenting. And thanks for giving an idea of what I need to work on. It really helps, i feel i'm getting better. I'll definitely work on the overdescribing stuff. I'm glad you thought it was good.
My scripts:
Façade: In a "film noir" set in the 1950's, a detective investigates the murder of a teenage boy in the quintessential 50's American suburbs, and as he slowly peels back the veneer of the picture perfect family, he realizes nothing is what it seems, unaware of what secrets he will uncover.
Thinking about it now you wanna look at stuff that has successfully been translated from book to film.
Trainspotting for me springs to mind as they said it couldn't be done. They took a book which would have been a six hour movie if they filmed it straight. They cut it down into a very good 90 minute movie.
Fight Club too. Palahnuik himself said the script was actually better than the book.
I took a look at this. Please don't be offended by the below: I'm going to focus on the stuff you could improve, because there's no point in listing the good points. Also, bear in mind that I only read about 1/3 of the script. At the end of this I thought I had enough to tell you something useful (hopefully!).
My big issue is that I didn't like the dialogue. Here are the reasons why:
1. Too long speeches. I don't know what the average speech is in this script - maybe 3 lines? That's way too much in my opinion. On the screen it would drag and seem unrealistic and stilted. How often in a conversation do you get to make, say, 2 or 3 complete sentences? To keep people hooked you need to up the pace - this is especially so in scenes where not that much action is happening. The dialogue has to sizzle. Okay, here's a random example from Sang Le's mother: "Liars! Those accusations are just a bunch of lies! How can you say those things about me, murderers!" Would the script really lose anything if this was cut to just "liars"? And how much quicker that idea would be got across. I think you need to go through and be absolutely ruthless in your cutting - only let a speech stretch to 2 lines if there's no choice. Have a look at some really fast paced scripts, like The West Wing scripts, for example. Most speeches are just a couple of words, yet somehow it all makes sense and keeps you hooked.
2. Too much exposition in the speeches. This really annoyed me at the start, when you were trying to get across basic information. For example:
DANNY Má, we already have a lot of tea at the apartment. How many people are coming to Sang Le’s homecoming party, anyway? MÁ I want to be prepared. You never know who may show up. Everyone wants to welcome your cousin to America after getting out of that refugee camp. I must have enough food for everyone. We don’t want to look cheap.
If they were out shopping for the homecoming party, Danny wouldn't have expressly spelled out "Sang Le's homecoming party" in casual conversation. And if they both know his history, ma wouldn't have said "...after getting out of that refugee camp". If you really need to get that information across you need to be clever about how you do it - for example, a friend could come up and ask them what they're doing and they could explain.
Hope that's some help in respect of your dialogue. Interesting script.
hey, thanks so much for taking a look at this. As i've said before, I'm a huge amateur (only my second full-length screenplay, 3rd overall), and I think your advice helped. I really wish I had time to just sit down and write/rewrite, but schoolwork is kicking my butt, with all the AP classes I'm taking, my life is crazy right now. I'll definitely work on the dialogue and writing as soon as i get the time, thanks
My scripts:
Façade: In a "film noir" set in the 1950's, a detective investigates the murder of a teenage boy in the quintessential 50's American suburbs, and as he slowly peels back the veneer of the picture perfect family, he realizes nothing is what it seems, unaware of what secrets he will uncover.