A father and daughter confront their problems with both family and race issues in the independent drama Dumbarton Bridge. John Shed (Tom Wright) is a Vietnam veteran who scrapes together a living working at the salt ponds in a small town south of San Francisco. Though John is black, he has few black friends and lives with his white girlfriend, Belinda (Daphne Ashbrook). While stationed in Vietnam, John had an affair with a local woman and fathered a child. To his surprise, one day his daughter, now grown and named Ming (Esperanza Catubig), appears at his door to pay an extended visit. John is at best disinterested and at worst hostile towards his daughter, and when Belinda asks Ming to stay with them, the tension becomes so great that Belinda moves out. After a prolonged period of difficulty, John and Ming realize they have difficulty coming to terms with each other because they've never come to terms with their own ethnicity. John takes a step toward self-acceptance by joining a support group for black men, while Ming begins to resolve her own issues when she becomes romantically involved with a Vietnamese-American social worker. The debut feature from writer/director Charles Koppelman, Dumbarton Bridge features a score of vintage jazz classics assembled by legendary producer Orrin Keepnews.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide