Chicken, directed by Josh Leong is a well crafted short film that is a heartfelt visual story. Chicken is playing at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.
If you want an heartfelt movie that focuses on visuals, acting, and storytelling – Chicken is for you. Directed by Josh Leong, Chicken follows a 16 year old boy faced with losing custody of his child and he must discover what it takes to be a father through the raising of a chicken.
With such a basic premise I didn’t expect much going in but it really hit me hard. Right out of the gate we are introduced to our main character and we are thrown into what his life is. This is done with stunning visuals are very well written dialogue. At time the visuals can detract from the story – but more on that later. This short film conveys a lot in such little time. Doing it in a montage-like fashion. This allows for great storytelling in its visuals but also for the story to move quick.
There aren’t super grand build ups or payoffs but the visuals themselves do tell a story. Like mentioned earlier there are a few shots that look really good but don’t feel necessary. Almost like they thought just because it looked cool it could be put in as an insert shot. Though the montage allowed for it to feel more seamless, those specific shots stood out in the rest of the montage.
Story-wise, though the premise is basic it tells a great simple story. It doesn’t add too many layers and only gives us enough surrounding information and characters so we can fully take in the situations. The only impactful side characters we have are 1 inmate and a therapist. The use of the inmate was phenomenal. For me it added a sense of not only setting but it added a real layer of emotion to the main character.
I don’t want to give away too much as I went into this film blind but the stories told for these side characters revolve around things our main character lacks. This goes deeper into the writing because I felt like every little piece of this short was perfectly crafted which lead to a near perfect bigger picture.
The ending of the film was very abrupt but told the audience just enough to where I understood the point of the entire movie. That is how I feel about most of this movie – it all feels very abrupt, very fast and unexplained, but I still understood everything every minute meaning and idea.
As a whole, Chicken is a really well crafted film, sometimes it gets too pushy when it comes to cinematography and pacing but at times it does work in its favor.
Rating: 4 out of 5
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About Chicken
In a Bronx juvenile prison, a 16-year-old boy faced with losing custody of his child must discover what it takes to be a father through raising a chicken.
Directed by Josh Leong
Josh Leong is a Webby Award®-winning writer, director, and graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He was awarded by President Obama, won the One to Watch Award at the 2020 Asian American International Film Festival, and directed The Other Side in Ethiopia, starring Ethan Herisse from Ava DuVernay’s Netflix series, When They See Us.