Fluent Westerners in 'Milk and Fashion'

[FinalFan18]

Just saw this movie called 'Milk and Fashion' which features two american westerners who speak fluent mandarin: Vanessa Branch and Kyle Rothstein. As far as movies in general go i'd have to say it's one of the worst things I've ever seen with some of the worst acting imaginable in both english and mandarin...apart from Vanessa Branch who seemed like the only one in the cast who knew what they were doing.

I always find it highly encouraging to see westerners like myself able to become fluent in mandarin. Sometimes you just need to be able to look and say 'yes, they did it so i can do it too...it can be done'.

Any fluent mandarin speakers or learners want to comment on how good or bad Kyle Rothstein's or Vanessa Branch's mandarin is?

[克里斯托弗]

I hate the western actors... but maybe I'm just jealous. ^^

But hey, it's a movie... they can cut out stupid sounding mandarin... or maybe it's dubbed?

Not sure... I'm a mandarin newbie and I only watched the trailer on youtube...

[renzhe]

If anyone's interested, the whole thing is available on

.

TBH, both of them speak with an accent and the girl makes some tone mistakes. But they're not bad in places. These lines are studied, so it's hard to judge how fluent they are. Maybe they're just uncomfortable with acting.

It's not, like, awesome or anything, but I've seen far worse foreigners in TV shows

[roddy]

I think Rothstein has come up on here before - wasn't he put in a Chinese school by his dad from the age of six or something?

[imron]

These lines are studied, so it's hard to judge how fluent they are. Maybe they're just uncomfortable with acting.

I agree with this part. They come across very much as if reading lines.

[taylor04]

Yea, it didnt come off as really as conversations to me, but more script reading, but I'll admit that his chinese seems very good

[isela]

The westerners' Chinese in here is totally understandable to me. Still got some flaws in their accent I guess, and it's a bit funny how much they love to talk those big words. But definitely I think this movie reflects lots of people's lifestyle in the current "transitional" China, and is certainly worth watching.

I actually felt bad for the kid having to live in an isolated and even imaginary world with his basketball buddy. It reminds me of John Nash in "a beautiful mind". I wonder whether his case is commonplace in China now (foreign kids made to grow up in China). Funny how he stalked the girl though.

In short, I think their Chinese is amazing, and this movie is the highlight of my weekend!