“I can’t quit you, rom-coms! I just can’t stay away,” Rachael Leigh Cook tells Tudum. “I am a lover of love.”
Her résumé speaks for itself: Throughout her career, Cook has sought romance on-screen over and over again, from her unforgettable performance opposite Freddie Prinze Jr. in 1999’s She’s All That, to the online dating hijinks in 2020’s Love Guaranteed. She’s back at it in A Tourist’s Guide to Love, an upcoming rom-com directed by Steven K. Tsuchida. Cook plays Amanda, a travel executive who goes undercover on a group tour in Vietnam after an unexpected breakup throws her into a spiral. There she meets charismatic and freewheeling expat guide Sinh (Scott Ly), who shows Amanda and her fellow travelers that adventure — and love — is often found off the beaten path.
It’s a message that Cook, also a producer on the film, can relate to on a personal level. “I've experienced too many breakups in my own life,” she says about what drew her to the character. “The idea of restarting your life is a topic that all too many of us are forced to reckon with, whether we like it or not.”
Just ask screenwriter Eirene Tran Donohue, who based the events in A Tourist’s Guide to Love on her own dramatic breakup on the eve of a five-week trip to Vietnam, where most of her mother’s family still lives. The heartbreaking experience changed her life. “On my last week in Vietnam, I met a Canadian backpacker who was very much a free spirit and very adventurous,” she writes in an email to Tudum. “It made me realize that I didn't actually want a safe predictable life. He was supposed to be my holiday fling, [but] we have been together ever since — 22 years.”
Still, choosing to set her script in Vietnam was about more than just nailing down biographical details. A Tourist’s Guide to Love marks an important historical moment as the first US film to be entirely shot on location there. “There are almost no American movies set in Vietnam that aren’t about the trauma of war,” Donohue adds. “It was really important to me to tell a story about life now. One that was full of joy and love and celebration. I wanted to change the conversation about Vietnam, to highlight it as a modern thriving country whose stories are worthy of being told.” Pack your bags and take a trip into the making of A Tourist’s Guide to Love below.
What’s a travel movie without an international cast of tourists? Starring alongside Cook are Missi Pyle, Ben Feldman, Glynn Sweet, Alexa Povah, Jacqueline Correa, Nondumiso Tembe, Andrew Barth Feldman and Morgan Lynee Dudley, as well as popular Vietnamese stars Nsưt Lê Thiện and Quinn Trúc Trần.
But as any rom-com fan knows, the real casting challenge comes in finding actors who share that je ne sais quoi known as chemistry. Who could match Cook’s longing glances? “What makes A Tourist’s Guide to Love unique is the story of [a] Vietnamese-American male romantic lead,” Tsuchida tells Tudum.
Enter Ly, who describes his character Sinh as a “happy go-lucky, very loving person who just loves life and lives in the moment. He always goes for it, kind of like me.” For proof, look no further than his audition. Ly was working as a personal trainer when he got the call to read opposite Cook. He said yes without a second thought. “I [learned] a lot from her,” he says about their scenes together. “She's the wave, I’m the surfer and I let her kind of take me on the ride.”
As for Cook, you only have to mention Ly’s name for her whole face to light up — she can’t wait for the world to meet a new movie star. “Scott’s got this magnetic, totally unique personality,” she says. “The way he does life, the way he walks into a room, his perspective on things, he's just such a character. You [can just tell], ‘Oh yeah, I believe that guy owns a backpack.’”
Right here! No trip to the airport needed.
A Tourist’s Guide to Love was filmed almost entirely on location in Vietnam — one of the first US films ever to do so. “To be able to film in so many locations in Vietnam was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Tsuchida says. “The excitement of [Ho Chi Minh City] was captivating, while the traditions of Hanoi were enriching. The diversity and culture of Da Nang, Hội An and My Son [sanctuary] was breathtaking. And living and filming in Hà Giang was spiritually moving.”
“[Vietnam is] insanely beautiful, and the landscape is so incredibly diverse,” Cook says. That's why I think it’s so important that we set the movie in so many different places... the topography varies so greatly and it’s such an asset to the movie and to everyone who is able to see it.”
For Ly, who was born in Texas after his parents immigrated to the United States, it was an unprecedented opportunity to reconnect with his roots. “It was like coming home,” he says. “Words can't describe it, really.”
In the film, Amanda travels to Vietnam just in time for Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration that falls this year on Jan. 22. Weaving the holiday’s themes into the plot was a way for Donohue to highlight some of the traditions she wanted to celebrate with this film.
“Tết is a holiday that focuses on new beginnings,” she says. “Releasing the past year and stepping into a new one, opening yourself up to opportunity and setting intentions and seeking good fortune. Creating the life that you were meant to live. That [is] very much a central theme in the movie — plus you get to have all those beautiful party scenes!”
A Tourist’s Guide to Love will stream on Netflix April 21, but you catch a sneak peek at the first six minutes of the film below, only on Tudum:
