Be There or Be Square
Be There or Be Square
| 25 December 1998 (USA)
Be There or Be Square Trailers

The story of two Chinese immigrants' struggles in America. Yuan Liu has lived in LA for years. He has no stable job, no family and lives in a wagon. He seems content with his life until the day he meets Qing Li, a woman with the big "American dream".

Reviews
Cleveronix A different way of telling a story
Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
Parker Lewis I loved Bu jian bu san, the English title being Be there or be square. Well, I'll be honest. When I first saw it (it was an in-flight movie) I didn't enjoy it. But when I watched it again, I grew to love it. It's a touching romance movie that has its ups and downs and you're never really sure if the couple will get together.Some reviewers object to the offensive and exaggerated portrayals of American (read white American) cruelty and depravity. Maybe. But let's not forget the American portrayals, offensive and exaggerated portrayals of Asian (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, you name it) culture. Oh well.
kungfu-lish84 This is a very interesting movie. This movie revealed the hardship of the previous generation of Chinese persons immigrating to America and finding no work. It had both humor and irony woven into the plot. It detailed the relationship of a man and woman both struggling in America to make ends meet, and the disillusionment of the "American dream." It used irony and American and Chinese stereotypes. One memorable part is when the man is teaching American police officers Mao-ist sayings to assist the police in arresting citizens that speak only Mandarin. This is a very funny movie, it is even funnier if perceptions of both the East of China and the West of America are understood. I do agree that this may not appeal to the average Westerner, but it greatly appealed to me...Great movie!!!
zzmale One of the reason this film so popular in China and among oversea Chinese was its direct criticism of the corruption in China, such as misuse of public funds: when the delegation came from China, the first thing was not to do something related to their mission, but to go to strip club to see naked women. This film openly criticized the corruption of this type, and although it might not be much to westerners, it was significant in China.
fengerzh I've seen this movie at the new year's day of 1999. Actually it is a quite good funny and happy movie, but of course with lots of shortage. I can't see any reason why the two people begin to love each other, seems only for lonely? Everything is just surface, no deep idea in it. But the screenplay is good, so I give it 7.