A Train Story with Two Names

Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day: A Fateful Year in Life of John Lee, Railroad Man is a fantasy based on the efforts of 18-year-old J.M. McFadden to buy the Yosemite Valley Railway in 1945. In real life, the railway was shut down before passenger rail business had a chance to recover from World War II. In the movie, John Lee, the descendant of Chinese railway worker, manages to borrow enough money to keep the railway open. The movie has a lot of magnificent train and scenery shots which the black and white film actually makes more interesting. The choice to film is black and white also helps integrate the historical footage the director found. The director and writer, is more interested in scenery than in the actual running of the railroad. The historical footage shows people working, but we never really see the main character actually working. Instead, he spends a lot of time with his girlfriend. Unfortunately, we are not sure where that part of the movie is going either.

Overall, the movie is well acted and has good cinematography for the its small budget, but the writing has no focus. It does make you think about what could have been done with all of the rail lines that have been abandoned since the 1945. John Lee's plans seem like they could have worked if he had worked harder. Maybe the director made him that way because making the railway successful would have gone against history.

The writer/director does include two facts of historical interest. First, the Interstate Commerce Commission was instrumental in ending the line. Second, the Yosemite Valley Railway was probably shut down for its rails and other equipment. A.E. Perlman, who bought the railroad and then shut it down to benefit the Rio Grande and Western R.R., also ripped up track when he was with the New York Central Railroad. However, the director speaks of Americans loving their cars at time when most Americans did not yet have them.

Overall, the movie has the potential to remind of us the role that Asian-Americans have played in our nation's railroad history and of some of the politics that have shaped that history. The skeleton is here for a much better movie. I love movies about people actually working which may be one of the reasons that I love train movies.