REVIEW: ‘Happy Cleaners’ Explores Life in the Hyphen of Korean-American

The balance between duty to your family and duty to yourself is a universal one but one felt especially strongly by children of immigrants who are keenly aware of their parents struggles and how much they’ve sacrificed for them. Happy Cleaners, co-directed by Julian Kim and Peter S. Lee, explores this balance through the lens of the Chois, a Korean-American family living in Flushing, New York. The parents (Hyanghwa Lim and Charles Ryu) own a struggling dry cleaning business, Happy Cleaners, that’s in danger when the owner of the building makes his eager to gentrifying son the new landlord.

Their daughter Hyunny (Yeena Sung) is the model second-generation kid. She has a good job in the medical field, helps pay the rent, goes to church, and does everything right. Well, except that her boyfriend Danny (Donald Chang), a college dropout working two jobs to make ends meet, who Mom does not approve of. Their son Kevin (Yun Jeong) on the other hand, has just dropped out of college in order to move to LA and pursue his dream of opening a food truck.

The family dynamics in Happy Cleaners are so familiar from all sides of the family. Mom and Dad don’t want to be struggling. They expected that after so many years in America they wouldn’t be reliant on their grown children to make ends meet. They are aware that despite everything they’ve been through and their time in the United States. Mom and Dad know that they are still outsiders in this country and know that will always be seen as such, making Mom especially try to make sure that their kids are set to not live as they do.

This translates to some “dragon mom” moments in a film. This choice in films made by people who aren’t intimately aware of how stereotypes are based in truth seem cliche, but in Happy Cleaners these moments just feels painfully real. And even with defeat permeating through them, they refuse to give in.

From their kids, Hyunny and Kevin navigate the hyphen in Korean-American, the bridge as Hyunny calls it. This involves connecting their parents and heritage to the country they grew up in and know. When the business needs help Kevin drops his plans to move to help out and sees more of his parents’ struggles than he’s seen before. While there, he doesn’t quite understand why they give in sometimes instead of always fighting.

While Hyunny challenges her parents less than Kevin, it’s because his dreams are big and full of opportunities for failure and she just wants to work her job, help her family, and spend time with her boyfriend. But Mom looks at Danny and sees a future for Hyunny similar to theirs, she sees a man similar to the one she married and wants better for her daughter.

All of these struggles play out primarily in the kitchen or around meals. The use of food throughout the entire film is beautiful. It connects everyone and communicates even when words fail. Kevin’s curiosity and desire to learn serves to show viewers the depth of Korean family food rather than just the KBBQ a lot of viewers know. It’s a touchstone when everything else seems so uncertain.

This slice of life film delves into the things we do for family and the things we do for ourselves, the choices we make and how they ripple through our lives, and the ways we can be happy even when things don’t work out as envisioned. Happy Cleaners is poignant and relatable but ultimately uplifting and a keen look at the lives of immigrant families.

Having had its world premiere at the 2019 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, more information on wider release is pending. If you would like to support the film, head on over to their Kickstarter and KoreanAmericanStory.org to stay up to date.