QUEEN(S)
Cast: Chi Hua Lee-Secci.
Writer and Director: Anup Kurian
*** and a 1/2 *'s out of Five
Ging Zhou (Chi Hua) has come to America to achive just a small part of life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. She took a small loan from gangsters in her country so that she could afford to come here and in not the best ways possible. She later becomes a sex worker to help pay back her debts.
When she later gets busted for soliciting sex. She tries her best to leave her old life behind and find good honest work. Soon she befriends a homeless woman and begins working various jobs to earn money to pay back the loan sharks But the debt of her loan keeps going up and her mother back home is being harassed. Will she continue to work various jobs and barely make payments or will she go back to escorting and risk jail time.
First off Chi Hua Lee Secci is a wonderful actor. Troughout this feature I was completely transfixed by her performance in this. Her speech in court when she begs the judge on what she can do will break your heart. Even if you just watch that end scene by itself, you will be moved by the emotion she puts forth in that scene and others as well. She gives a very honest and real performance and I hope she gets featured in more movies because of this. But her character makes some really bad chocies thoughout this narrative.
What I don't understand is after Ging Zhou aka Sisi gets busted for sex work the first time. Why is she all of a sudden homeless. Yes, she does give a portion of her earnings to pay back a loan but did she seriosuly not have any extra funds for herself at all. How did she pay for the room she brought clients to. How did she pay for items like condoms, sanitary wipes, hygene products, ect. She wouldn't have gotten in trouble with the law in the first place if she would have asked all of her clients if they are a cop. That way if she got arrested, they would be in trouble for entrapment. This is something that happens twice which made me question have the filmmakers really do any research on sex workers or spoken to any while making this movie. Unless this movie was set in the late 70's, sex work of today usually doen't include pimps and gangsters.
QUEEN(S) wants to show it's audience that our lead character doesn't want to do anything she finds degrading. But it's not like she was forced into that line of work. When she decides to not go back after her arrest. I dont see any scenes where she forced to go back in any way. When Sisi meets other homeless women and they are picking up cans for cash and eating discarded food thrown out. It does what I had issues with Nomadland and that being homelsss is somehow glamorized. Now I fully belive that they are human beings and should be protected against any wrong doings to them. But this isn't a life that should be praised. I understand that it wants to show us how difficult it is to achive citizenship and the struggles Ging Zhou faces. It just would have been nice if it showed us scenes of her talking to a social worker or something. She has that one client at the start who was trying to help her get I.D. but nothing ever came of that.
The movie does feature some really good cinematography and I enjoyd the score of it as well. I only wish that the songs that were played had subtitlles because I feel they would make me understand our lead character's thoughts more.
QUEEN(S) is currently playng at Emagine WIllow Creek Theaters This Week
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