Sara

雏妓

Hong Kong, 2014, colour, 2.35:1, 93 mins.

Director: Qiu Litao 邱礼涛 [Herman Yau].

Rating: 3/10.

The first “adult” drama by Twins singer Cai Zhuoyan [Charlene Choi] is a complete mess on almost every level.

STORY

Hong Kong, autumn 1999. He Yuling (Cai Zhuoyan), 10, is raped by her stepfather (He Huachao) while her mother (Sun Jiajun) listens outside the bedroom. Soon afterwards, the stepfather disappears and the mother raises He Yuling on her own, earning money as a prostitute. In summer 2000 He Yuling leaves home and lives on the streets with other young friends. By the harbour, she often sees a man fishing at night on his own. By spring 2014 she is working as a magazine journalist, going undercover as a bargirl to expose shady links between government and big business; her boyfriend is Raymond (Liu Junjiang), an editor at the magazine. When her article is killed due to advertiser pressure, He Yuling resigns and, in a huff, books an air ticket to Chiang Mai, Thailand, leaving the next day. (She remembers how she got to know the amateur fisherman, Gan Haoxian [Ren Dahua], and ended up being put through schooling by him, in return for sex. He was actually an outwardly respectable married man who was a senior education officer for the government.) In Chiang Mai, He Yuling meets under-age bargirl Dok-my, aka Angela (Sunadcha Tadrabiab), who plies the tourist trade; feeling sorry for her, He Yuling buys her for an evening in order to interview her. (In 2006 Gan Haoxian was promoted to Deputy Secretary for Education and that winter had to publicly defend cuts to university education. He Yuling, already tired of his jealousy over another student [Ling Ziwei] who liked her, had a major row with Gan Haoxian.] In Chiang Mai, He Yuling and Dok-my become friends. (In autumn 2008 He Yuling graduated and Gan Haoxian told her that, after eight years, it was time to break off their relationship. Later she found out his wife [Gong Ci’en] had become paralysed from a stroke. They only met once more, in winter 2013, when she was already a successful journalist and he was dying of liver cancer.) In Chiang Mai, Yuling takes a decision that almost proves fatal, and also tries to rescue Dok-my from her situation while doing an expose on Thailand’s sex-tourism industry.

REVIEW

Despite a good run in recent years with more prestige movies – The Legend Is Born: Ip Man 叶问前传 (2010), The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake 竞雄女侠秋瑾 (2011), Ip Man: The Final Fight 叶问  终极一战 (2013) – prolific Hong Kong director/d.p. Qiu Litao 邱礼涛 [Herman Yau] has never strayed very far from his genre journeyman roots, which he’s still capable of imbuing with a pulpy invention on a good day (Nightmare 青魇, 2012). Alas, Sara 雏妓 isn’t one of them. As From the Queen to the Chief Executive 等候董建华发落 (2001) showed, Qiu has never been at his best when supposedly dealing with social issues, and Sara, which flirts with under-age sex, the Thai sexual-tourism industry and undercover journalism, is a complete mess on almost every level, largely thanks to a typically rocky script by regular writer Li Min 李敏 [Erica Li]. At best, it’s going to be remembered as the movie in which Cai Zhuoyan 蔡卓妍 [Charlene Choi] – the younger half of Cantopop duo Twins – took some clothes off in her first “adult” role.

Partly thanks to her baby-cute looks, Cai has always had a harder time growing up on film than her Twins partner Zhong Xintong 钟欣潼 [Gillian Chung]. Ten years ago she played a typically feisty daughter role in Qiu’s comedy PaPa Loves You 这个阿爸真爆炸 (2004); now 32, she scales back that cuteness in a part that calls for her to age from 10 to her early 20s, from seriously under-age sexual abuse by a stepfather, through an under-age but consensual relationship with a sugar daddy who puts her through school, to an adult investigative journalist with a social conscience. Despite looking much older than she’s meant to be in the early scenes, Cai gets no help from Li’s script, which never gets under the psychological skin of her character beyond a teen-novel level, and trades in every cliche of the genres it surfs. (After falling for her married sugar daddy, the audience is even told her favourite novel is Daddy-Long-Legs.)

The film’s unwieldy structure, flashing back and forth between her teen years and the present day in Thailand, doesn’t help to build any sustained drama, and the dialogue, in both time zones, is either arch or simplistic, with one-dimensional characters. As the government education officer who funds her schooling in between bed sessions, Ren Dahua [Simon Yam] just about escapes with his reputation intact thanks to pure technique. Cai has little technique to fall back on, and their love story never convinces. As the under-age sex worker, Sunadcha Tadrabiab looks the part, and has a convincing bottom-line practicality; but her English dialogue is unbelievable for a supposedly uneducated Thai teenager. Other roles are passing, including Singapore-born actress Sun Jiajun 孙佳君 as Sara’s mother, seen only at the start and finish.

Qiu’s regular tech team, including d.p. Chen Guanghong 陈广鸿 [Joe Chan] and editor Zhong Weizhao 钟炜钊 [Azrael Chung], produce a good-looking, smooth package that’s out-of-kilter with the film’s pulpiness. In its Thai scenes, the Hong Kong movie also trades on the same “exoticism” and First/Third World cliches that western productions often exploit. Despite all the hype, the film is visually chaste – a victim of its own prudish times and a long way, unfortunately, from the gleefully fun Category III movies that Qiu made during the 1990s. The use of the song Que sera, sera – a kind of pun on Sara – comes across as lame. The film’s Chinese title is a term meaning under-age prostitute.

CREDITS

Presented by Fox International Channels (HK), Rex Film Production (HK). Produced by HK Film Production (HK).

Script: Li Min [Erica Li]. Photography: Chen Guanghong [Joe Chan]. Editing: Zhong Weizhao [Azrael Chung]. Music: Mai Zhenhong [Brother Hung]. Art direction: Liang Shiyun. Costume design: Bai Yongan. Sound: Guo Zhiwen, Nie Jirong. Action: Huang Weiliang [Jack Wong]. Visual effects: Chen Yinuo, Li Zifei (Herbgarden).

Cast: Cai Zhuoyan [Charlene Choi] (He Yuling/Sara), Ren Dahua [Simon Yam] (Gan Haoxian), Sunadcha Tadrabiab (Dok-my/Angela), Liu Junjiang (Raymond, He Yuling’s boyfriend), Sun Jiajun (He Yuling’s mother), He Huachao (Guohua, He Yuling’s stepfather), Ling Ziwei (Patrick, He Yuling’s university admirer), Lin Chaorong (magazine chief editor), Gong Ci’en [Mimi Kung] (Gan Liu Shuyi, Gan Haoxian’s wife), Xu Xiaocao (university professor), Ou Ailing (mama-san), Wang Beier (Harietta, karaoke girl), Chen Jinghong (He Yuling’s younger brother, adult), Qiu Langjie (He Yuling’s younger brother, child), Lin Liheng (Gan Haoxian’s son, child), Zhang Jinqiao (Gan Haoxian’s son, adult), Wang Jingwen (He Yuling’s university classmate).

Premiere: Macau International Movie Festival, Dec 2014.

Release: Hong Kong, 5 Mar 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 29 Mar 2015.)