EDEN

Jamie Chung stars in a searing contemporary drama, based on the true story of a Korean-American teenager who is kidnapped from a bar in New Mexico and transformed into a sex slave in Las Vegas by a band of ruthless international thugs. Beau Bridges plays an avuncular federal marshal, a good ol’ boy who turns out to be one of the operation’s masterminds, while Matt O’Leary is equally repellent as his wildly erratic, drug-addled right-hand man. But it’s Chung who breathes life into a story that could have been reduced to violent, even pornographic sensationalism, if not told so compassionately from the victim’s point of view. Human trafficking is a $32 billion-a-year business, perpetrated throughout the world. EDEN gives a thoughtful, albeit mind-boggling perspective on how these crimes are committed in America, sometimes within plain sight.

USA • 2012 • 98 MINS. • PHASE 4 FILMS

REVIEWS

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“Jamie Chung gives the best performance of her career.”
– Peter Martin, Twitchfilm.com

“(An) excellent hard-edge drama.  (Director Megan) Griffiths and screenwriter Richard B. Phillips present the underground world of human trafficking with unflinching harshness.”
– Matt Barone, Complex online

“Bravely examines an unsavory atrocity, a corner of our society that the media largely ignores and many desperately try to forget.  Jamie Chung gives a dynamic performance.  This is a visceral, haunting work that will not soon be forgotten by any who see it.”
– Monica Riese, The Austin Chronicle

“Nothing short of gripping.  Compulsively watchable.  It’s a character study with thriller elements; it exposes you to a horrible underworld without ever beating you over the head with it.”
– Drew Taylor, Indiewire

“Scrupulously avoiding salaciousness and overstatement, EDEN translates a true-life tale of human trafficking into an effectively low-key, arrestingly suspenseful drama… EDEN is at once discreetly elliptical and almost clinically specific in its depiction of indoctrination and exploitation in the slave trade. Chung (gives a) subtle, multilayered performance.”
– Joe Leydon, Variety

“GRIPPING.”
– John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter