Directed by the tenaciously intellectual female director Ann Hui, Boat People is the most heart-wrenching and mind-blowing film I’ve seen since at least a decade.
Set in a period of Vietnamese history which is a taboo for Chinese history education, it is eye-opening and value-challenging for Chinese audience. The Vietnam War was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, while the south was supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies. The film starts about three years after the Communist takeover, a Japanese photo-journalist travels to Vietnam to document the country’s seemingly triumphant rebirth. When he befriends a 14-year-old girl and her destitute family, however, he begins to discover what the government doesn’t want him to see: the brutal, often shocking reality of life in a country where political repression and poverty haver forced many to resort to desperate measures in order to survive. George Lam looks perfect to act as the Japanese photo-journalist (but why Japanese one may ask?), and the acting of the fresh and new Season Ma as the teenage is impeccably stunning (one may ask why she chose to stop her acting career in the 1990s). The deeply controlled and humanistic approach by the transcending polemic HK New Wave director Ann Hui makes the harrowing experience of the characters so haunting for the spectators. Shot in China’s Hainan island, the film was banned by Taiwan because one of the leading actors is from Mainland China (Qi Mengshi). It was also banned by China because it portrays the cruel slaughter of the victorious Communist Party in Vietnam. Still, it was already a wonder that it was allowed to be shot in mainland China at all. So hail to the 1980s! There are numerous details in the film to be talked about, but I will leave them out. The French is always freaking frank about things, such as the translation of the film: Passeport Pour l’Enfer, on this incredible poster.
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A film customized for Maggie Cheung by the French director Olivier Assayas who became Cheung’s first and only husband shortly after the completion of the film. Cheung was playing herself, a HK actress who was known in the west as the parter of Kongfu master Jackie Chan but was surprisingly chosen by a French director to remake Louis Feuillade’s 1916 classic Les Vampires. The film was shot complete in a couple of months without a single retake. It must have been a very refreshening role for Cheung to be dressed in a latex cat suit found in a sex shop working with a chaotic and arrogant French crew who showed no respect or understanding to her acting or opinions, and this is where Assayas made Irma Vep into a memorable film, by cleverly demonstrating the ridicule of the French film industry as well as paying homage to the Nouvelle Vague masters. All typically French I would say. As for Cheung’s performance in it, I like what Nick Burton said in his review: “To see Maggie Cheung in this remarkable film is to fall in love with her.” I think that applies to most of her films from 1998.
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May 2024
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