Tag: immigrants

Tale of love and loneliness set in massage parlor

Immigrants and massage parlor workers Amy (Ke-Xi Wu, left) and Didi (Haipeng Xu) share a happy moment in Blue Sun Palace.

By Richard Ades

When you’re living in a foreign land, human connections can be as precious as they are rare. Maybe that’s the message of Constance Tsang’s debut feature film, Blue Sun Palace.

Then again, maybe it’s not. Writer/director Tsang doesn’t force an interpretation on you, any more than she tells you what to think of her characters, all Chinese or Taiwanese immigrants eking out a living in Queens, New York. She merely invites you to sit back and watch their stories unfold.

In the case of one of them, their story doesn’t unfold nearly long enough.

We first meet a young woman named Didi (Haipeng Xu) when she’s sharing a restaurant meal with Cheung (Kang-sheng Lee), a somewhat older man who seems to be a good friend and maybe a future boyfriend. The two clearly enjoy each other’s company, and Didi even invites Cheung to spend the night after he misses the last bus home.

The next morning, however, the couple’s relationship seems less certain. When Cheung begins talking about possibly sharing a home someday, Didi jokingly shuts him down, saying her ultimate plan is to move to Baltimore and open a restaurant with her friend Amy (Ke-Xi Wu).

We then learn that Didi and Amy, along with two other immigrant women, manage and work at a massage parlor—a neighborhood business that claims it doesn’t offer sexual services even though we’ve seen evidence to the contrary. Since Cheung is one of the parlor’s clients, the exact nature of his relationship with Didi becomes even more nebulous.

What isn’t nebulous is that Didi is the heart and soul of the parlor’s little community, keeping the other women’s spirits up and organizing dinners that remind them of the traditions and families they left behind. This makes it all the more devastating when Didi suddenly disappears from the story due to a tragic development that thankfully is left off-screen.

Amy (Ke-Xi Wu) wonders what to do about the leaking ceiling in her Queens massage parlor.

From then on, the film changes its focus to Amy and Cheung and their struggles to deal with Didi’s departure. In the process, they reveal a little more about themselves. We learn, for example, that Cheung has a wife and daughter in Taiwan but seems either unable or unwilling to be reunited with them.

Tentatively, Amy and Cheung begin spending time together. Do they feel a real connection, or are they merely trying to fill the emptiness left by Didi’s loss? Tsang’s script neither judges the characters nor explains all their motives, but it does supply an ending that ties up enough loose ends to be satisfying.

A film that avoids overt sentimentality and proceeds at its own pace, Blue Sun Palace is not for every taste. But it has multiple charms, including a wonderful cast giving understated, naturalistic performances.

Mix in Sami Jano’s subtle musical score, Caitlin Carr’s unhurried editing and Norm Li’s elegant cinematography, and you end up with a calm viewing experience that may remind some of the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu.  

Who knows? Maybe someday people will be talking with equal reverence about the films of the great Chinese American director Constance Tsang.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Blue Sun Palace (no MPA rating) opens April 25 in New York and Los Angeles, with further screenings planned in subsequent weeks. It is scheduled to screen at 9:30 p.m. May 9 at the Gateway Film Center in Columbus.

Different century, same misery

Les Miserables 2
Three plain-clothes cops (Damien Bonnard, Alexis Manenti and Djibril Zonga, from left) patrol a poor Parisian neighborhood in Les Misérables. (SRAB Films/Rectangle Productions/Lyly Films)

By Richard Ades

As Les Misérables opens, a group of dark-skinned youths joyfully celebrate France’s 2018 World Cup championship by taking part in a public event that includes a mass rendition of “La Marseillaise.” Director Ladj Ly’s apparent message: Despite being immigrants or the children of immigrants, the boys consider themselves just as French as those around them.

As Ly’s camera follows them back to their segregated Parisian neighborhood, however, we realize they don’t enjoy the same opportunities as their countrymen. This isn’t Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables—there’s no Jean Valjean, no Javert, no idealistic revolutionaries. But there’s more than enough injustice to light the fuse of revolt, just as it did in Hugo’s tale.

The question is: Will it? Leading up to the answer is a harrowing dive into the lives of modern-day immigrants.

The Malian-born Ly, directing and co-writing his first full-length film, doesn’t create a one-sided portrait of discrimination. Those who take advantage of the local residents include a racist white cop named Chris (Alexis Manenti), but they also include the neighborhood’s black “Mayor” (Steve Tientchev), who uses his power to line his own pockets. There’s also a group of thugs who consort with the police to further their illegal activities.

We’re introduced to the resulting cauldron of resentment through the eyes of newcomer Stephane (Damien Bonnard), a divorced cop who’s moved to Paris to be closer to his young son. He’s assigned to ride along with Chris and his Malian-French partner, Gwada (Djibril Zonga), and soon becomes appalled by the liberties Chris takes with residents—for example, finding excuses to body-search teenage girls.

But before he can decide how to respond, Stephane and the others are thrown into the middle of potentially explosive situation brought on by a seemingly small crime: the theft of a lion cub from a traveling circus. This brings them into contact with two local boys—the trouble-prone Issa (Issa Perica) and the drone-flying Buzz (Al-Hassan Ly)—as well as a devout Muslim restaurateur named Salah (Almamy Kanoute). Thus begins a chain of events that results in unforeseen consequences for all concerned.

Why name this contemporary tale Les Misérables? That’s spelled out when the film ends with a quote from Hugo: “There are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.”

Viewers may quibble about whether Ly has proved the maxim, just as they may differ on whether it should win the “International Feature Film” Oscar for which it’s been nominated. (Probably not, as South Korea’s Parasite seems a worthy shoo-in.) But they’re likely to agree that Ly has created an exciting cautionary tale and an impressive full-length debut.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Les Misérables (rated R) opens Jan. 24 at the Drexel Theatre and Gateway Film Center.