Asian Persuasion (2025)

-Written by Kyle Bain.

Trying to avoid alimony payments, a desperate, down-on-his-luck father, Mickey de los Santos (Dante Basco), looks for an unconventional way out. Asian Persuasion, the cheekily-titled film, focuses on Mickey’s journey toward redemption, while maintaining the strong bond he has with his daughter.

Asian Persuasion is your typical cheesy, low-budget comedy, but with a lot of heart. It’s clear the passion that this production team has for this film, but there’s also heart ingrained in the narrative. That’s the film’s only glimmer of hope, a constant presence of passion that permeates the narrative, acting, etc. Beyond that, however, there is little to love about this film. 

The narrative is predictable. From the opening scene, when first introduced to Mickey and his now ex-wife, viewers are privy to the journey that he will face. As the film progresses, that narrative becomes even more predictable, and with that, monotonous and boring. Asian Persuasion may pride itself on being a passion project, but it’s little more than that. The reality is that the film requires viewers to turn their brains off, and requires them not to participate in the story in order to appreciate the overly linear (yet somehow still frumpy) and rudimentary narrative. With that comes even more trouble, the issue of character development (or lack thereof). 

In a film that begs viewers not to play along, to, again, shut their brains off for its duration–it runs of the risk of having its characters go unnoticed and underappreciated. That’s most certainly the case of Asian Persuasion. Not a single character is compelling, not a single character appealed to me or grew in a way that made them more interesting by the film’s conclusion. There’s nothing intellectual about them, no opportunity presented for them to grow, and by the end of the film, the same one-dimensional characters that plagued the screen at the start remain, with nothing more to offer. 

Writer Mike Ang and Director Jhett Tolentino create something horrifically simple–and beyond that, the technical aspects of the film are mediocre at best. I desperately wanted something more than the passion of the team behind the project to appeal to me, to provide me a reason to care, but there’s nothing. Some establishing shots are attractive, but play such a small role in the grand scheme of this production. The sound design is average, presenting viewers with a somewhat whimsical, yet all-too simplistic soundscape. Asian Persuasion remains choppy in its storytelling, inserting pieces of the narrative into spaces where they simply don’t belong.

On a good day, Asian Persuasion is just fine. However, the sad reality is that Asian Persuasion is a frustrating film that couldn’t get out of its own way, a film plagued by mistakes in casting, editing, and more. There’s no depth to this film, and viewers get nothing more than a shallow attempt at a chuckle. I hate to be this harsh when it comes to any film, but sometimes the shoe fits–and Asian Persuasion is a perfect example of that. 

Directed by Jhett Tolentino. 

Written by Mike Ang. 

Starring Dante Basco, Paolo Montalban, Kevin Kreider, Celia Au, KC Concepcion, etc. 

2.5/10 = AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS