With nowhere to go on yet another night of the COVID-19 lockdown, The Wife and I settled in to watch the first Lifetime movie with Asian American leads. As we rarely watch the Lifetime channel, I decided to keep my expectations low. That was a good thing, as A Sugar & Spice Holiday is like a mooncake – some good points, some bad points, some will like it, and some will not.
Some positives: It was good see to Asian American leads, and especially a love story with an Asian American couple. There was even a couple with an Asian Male and a non-Asian female. The Asian American family was not cultureless, and there were references to things that Asian Americans run into like the “where are you from” thing. The story was sweet and was neatly wrapped up cleanly like a holiday present.
Some negatives: I thought that Jacky Lai’s character was stereotypical in her drive and general overachievement. I would have liked to see more of Tzi Ma, and a conceit about his accent was not well executed, in my opinion. A brief storyline about Lillian Lim’s cooking goes unresolved. Finally, the story was neatly wrapped up cleanly like a holiday present, which made it very predictable. I told The Wife what I thought would happen at the final contest, and I was exactly right.
I generally think of mooncakes as okay, and similarly, I think that this movie is okay. This movie is definitely a sign of Asian American entering the mainstream, as it has some of the standard tropes of the other 88 Lifetime Christmas movies. So if you like Lifetime movies (my smartwatch thought that I was asleep during the time that I watched the movie), you will probably like this movie. It is currently available for free on Lifetime and you can also rent or buy it from Amazon Prime Video.
(picture courtesy of IMDB/Lifetime Channel)
