My Name Ain't Suzie
Scr: John Chan Koon-chung
Prod Co: Shaw Brothers
Cast: Pat Ha, Deanie Ip, Anthony Perry (aka Anthony Wong), Angela Yu Chien, Betty Ting Pei
1985 / Colour / D Beta / Cantonese / Chi & Eng subtitles / 96min
The Suzie in the title refers to The World of Suzie Wong, the novel by British author Richard Mason and later adapted for the screen by Hollywood. Like Suzie, Pat Ha's character works in a bar in the red light district of Wanchai around the late 1950s where Vietnam-bound American sailors and US dollars are plentiful. But that's where the similarities end. Director Angie Chen was born in Shanghai, brought up in Taiwan and Hong Kong and returned from her studies in the US in the early 1980s to seek opportunities in filmmaking with Shaw Brothers. It was out of this diasporic background that her personal response to The World of Suzie developed. Scripted by John Chan, the individual stories feel like anecdotes about a motley crew: from drifters, mixed-race children of questionable parentage, glamourous golden girls and has-beens, to gangsters of honourable and noble intentions. Bookended by the opening scene of neon-lit streets and filthy, dark alleys at the end is a series of eloquent, poetic character studies which, collectively, form a social portrait of a time, place and way of life in a seedy but soulful part of a metropolis.
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