Thoughts after watching two films

Two Hong Kong movies shown on TV under the Celestial Movies series gave me many reflections, which I shall share here. I link thoughts on both films to public policies, social justice and the roles which NGOs have played and continue to play. The first film I analyse titled My First of May explores the emotional, mental struggle of a father who abandoned his crippled, wheelchair-bound daughter in the care of his aged mother. His own wife, the girl’s mother, had long left them, unable to face up to the unspeakable torment of caring for a child who would progressively worsen in mobility and general health. The second movie deals with a subject hardly ever discussed publicly or privately. Titled Someone Like Me, the brilliant director and exceptionally skilled actors brought to life the honest, open struggle of a girl with cerebral palsy who searches for sexual and romantic gratification.  

In My First of May, Aaron Kwok Fu-shing takes on the challenging role of the father. In the film, he was once a celebrated squash champion before an injury robbed him of a brilliant sports career. This must be one of those life-changing ironies life can throw at us. Now he himself must deal with a physical impairment which terminates a brilliant squash career, forcing him to earn a paltry living coaching sundry young kids. Some of these kids have rich but stingy parents who demand a lot and are in denial, refusing to see that their kids are totally uninterested in squash.

At this juncture of loss and loneliness, his ageing mother, played by the skilled veteran actress Nina Paw Hee Ching, connects with him and reports on his daughter, now a young adult, whom he has not seen for years. The rare spinal disease has robbed the young girl of mobility, so the grandma has to lift her onto the wheelchair and into her bed, as well as fix her night breathing equipment. Without gushing tears, without shallow sentimentality, the veteran actress touches us when she appeals for help from her son. Will her son, the girl’s father, return? How do two human beings, returnee father and crippled daughter, whom he has not connected with for years, face each other? I leave you to watch their progress and observe the nuances. Natalie Hsu, who acts as the crippled daughter, combines a rivetingly complex mix of defiant pride, softness and anger, intelligence and limited knowledge, despair and hope. She is barely 18 in the movie.

Hidden away in our own Malaysian locales are such human struggles too, which our governmental policies must address in a monitored manner. Are these measures working well? Besides monetary help, carers and the disabled need counselling? Who listens to them without judgement? In all acts of assistance, it is crucial we see those in need as people with dignity and self-respect, whichever their race. All too often, we look at those who have fallen on hard times as ‘losers’, ‘failures’. We look away, more so with the severely disabled. We avert our eyes because we want our world to be peopled by the beautiful gals and guys in the enticing advertisements of a consumerist society. People in need, some ragged, are not attractive externally. Yet, like the father in this film, they retain self-respect and are not looking for handouts all the time. They need jobs for dignity, not only for dollars and cents. Are governments looking into more jobs for them?

The girl’s mother, having left her to pursue the trajectory of a more affluent life, cannot bear to reunite with her now young adult daughter. She watches the wheelchair move by but will not emerge from the spot where she hides to meet her daughter, even when a meeting between mother and daughter had been arranged. Was it because of shame for abandoning her baby, a choice made long ago, or was it that old shame of birthing a baby with an incurable, debilitating disease? Should we condemn this mother strongly when our own moral compass could be as fallible as hers?

Yet it is here in the darkness of human need, financial and psychological, that the father and crippled daughter paradoxically discover light. It reminds me of Desmond Tutu’s words: “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness.” Such stubborn hope is not sentimental wish fulfilment but hope which fuels practical actions. Sadly, social welfare departments worldwide are often very short of staff and so heavily burdened with cases that they cannot train staff to help those in need see some light or offer practical financial aid. Funding cuts affect governmental welfare departments in this season of worldwide economic uncertainty and volatility. NGOs are similarly affected.

Someone Like Me, the second film I discuss, explores sexuality and disability. Malaysian-born actress Fish Liew won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress for her brilliant portrayal of a young woman with cerebral palsy resulting in mobility and speech impairment. In the film, her name is Mui. Mui’s mind is alert and vigorous. She manages to use her stiff, weak hands to draw sketches, some of which she sells. She is quite a bold and accomplished artist. The director-writer, Tam Wai-ching, did well in choosing to show Mui as enjoying friendship with other wheelchair youths and even with friends whose roller blading skill she enjoys watching. Not every OKU (disabled person) is weepy or seasonally suicidal.

The film begins with a scene where Mui uses the internet (her fingers are still nimble enough for this) to search for sexual surrogates and volunteers. Some people watching this scene may be uncomfortable because sexuality is private – and this scene is even more uneasy to watch as it involves a disabled woman? Early in the movie, Mui already shows agency and autonomy in exploring her own body.

Progressive governments, NGOs and civil society organisations recognise that the disabled have the same rights to sexual expression, intimacy and reproductive health. Since the story takes place in an Asian locale, there may not be vocal advocacy organisations or peer support groups. Mui thus seeks help from Eva (played by Polly Lau), who arranges for volunteers to serve disabled clients. Of course, as in any movie, however deep the theme explored, only a good-looking hero can draw moviegoers. So the handsome actor Carlos Chan Kah-lok plays this volunteer, whose name is Kin. To be fair to the director, I must add that in this film, Carlos Chan does have a blister or two on his face – by some make-up artist? More important than blisters is that this man has his own demons to battle. Now a dishwasher at a restaurant, he had to forego a more promising career to look after a bedridden sister. Unlike the usual tearjerker melodramas, this tragedy told in flashbacks resonates anew. His sister’s husband left her after she was disabled due to illness and she finally committed suicide. Disability can strike even a once healthy person, and this must give us pause. The irony is that Mui, struggling with cerebral palsy limitations from birth, is happier than the physically fit Carlos, who continues to be haunted by his sister’s suicide and by guilt for not having done more for his ailing sibling.

I shall leave the interested reader to watch the coming together of Mui and her volunteer sexual partner, reassuring you that all sequences are tastefully presented by the director-writer and superbly acted out by Fish Liew and Carlos Chan. The ending of the movie is not a shallow, happy conclusion. Kin is arrested by the police because Mui’s mom accuses him of raping her daughter. Defiantly, Mui tells the police, “Just because I am disabled, I must be a victim? I cannot choose to be with someone cos no one would be with someone like me?” Kin is let off when he tells the police that it was all volunteerism, a ‘job’ of sorts and this is supported by his handler. Where have all the shared tender moments gone? Did Mui misread them? There had been times when Kin was willing to let down his defensive fences to share his painful past, or was this too part of the game? Perhaps Kin left because he concludes that his messy life is too heavy a burden for any woman, disabled or not, to bear?

Mui’s relationship with her mother raises questions about parental control over the autonomy of disabled children. Mui’s mother allows her some agency to meet friends but controls her daughter’s womanhood by enforcing a hysterectomy for her daughter. She never allows her child to use lipstick or other cosmetics. It is only because Mui earns through her own artistic effort that she can buy these. Mui hides these items beneath her paintbrushes. Do carers, mentors and parents consciously or unconsciously neuter and unsex disabled children? How do governmental institutions and NGOs handle autonomy and agency for disabled clients?

Caring parents and other family members, kind friends and well-trained, compassionate social welfare workers can help the disabled navigate well the byways and highways of life, both physically and psychologically. In Someone Like Me, the last camera shot shows Mui wheeling herself in her motorised wheelchair, out and about, ready to face the world, a little sad but wiser. Undefeated, she is ready to face life with fresh energy. As she stated early in the movie, “I have never thought of suicide.”                 

Movies, well-directed and written, with brilliant acting are worth discussing over a cup of coffee kaw-kaw or milk tea. The movies analysed above offer us a superb occasion to share thoughts, opinions and reflections on a variety of issues. 

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