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Director
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Kiwi Chow
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Cast
Category
Duration
Genre
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Jacqueline Zhu,
Jacky Cheung, Stephanie Che, Cherrie Ying,
Zi Yi, Deanie Ip, Lo Hoi-pang
IIA
108 mins
Narrative
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“A Complicated Story” portrays a mainland university student Liu Yazi agrees to become a
surrogate mother for a sizable sum in order to pay for her brother’s surgery. When the contract is terminated, she refuses to abortion and escapes to an island. Yuk Cheung, as the father
of the baby, tracks her down, and gradually gets attracted by Yazi. At the same
time, Yazi’s boyfriend promises to take care of her and her baby. Moreover, the
lawyer Kammy of Yuk’s wife Tracy is secretly in love with Yazi as
well. Not only the relationships among all those characters, but also the inner
struggles and selfishness of Yazi make the story complicated.
This plot is slightly related to the sensitive issue in 2010. Peter Lee-Ka-Kit,
the vice chairman of Henderson Development got triple sons but was suspected of
arranging surrogacy in US which is illegal in Hong Kong. Lastly, due to the insufficient
evidence, the accusation was unfounded and that contradictory hot issue was
vanished at the end.
In the first scene, during the interview with the lawyer Kammy, Yazi is
depicted as a brave and independent woman who is willing to sacrifice her womb
for surrogacy in order to save her brother’s kidney. However,
at the end, she confesses that she is a lesbian and the reason of lending her
womb is to know the feeling of being pregnant. In
this case, Yazi is actually a self-centered person, who just thinks of her own benefits.
Giving birth to a baby is never an easy job, as Deanie Ip says in the
film, “it’s hard to raise and educate kids.” In Hong Kong,
raising a child is required at least 4 million dollars. Moreover, how the child
would think about without knowing who his/her real father is? The mental development
of that child might be affected as well. Not
only the baby, but also Yazi’s boyfriend Zi Yi is the
victim as Yazi keeps hiding the fact of “she is a lesbian”. It gives the
stereotypical representative of post-80s women as selfish, self-centered without thinking
properly before their actions.
After the divorce with Tracy and the contract is terminated, Yuk wants
to negotiate with Yazi to get back his baby. Gradually, Yuk was attracted by
Yazi due to the attitude of how Yazi refuses the offer from Yuk as she does not
think that money can buy everything. “I’ve always wanted to find a true
friend who would treat me not as a rich guy, but just a common man,” says by Yuk. In this
case, it stereotypes most of the rich people usually are difficult to find a
true friend and think that money can buy everything, including love.
During the
conversation between Kammy and Yazi about Mr. Yuk, Kammy tells Yazi,
“Among the riches, he’s a civilized man.” Due to the cultural difference
between Hong Kong and China, it seems to imply the new riches in Chinese are
uncivilized who jump the queue, spit on the floor and speak loudly in the
public space etc. Compare to the interest of Yuk and new riches in Chinese, Yuk
loves collecting antiques and another ones love shopping around the brand
shops.
In the end of the movie,
Yazi only leaves a letter to the lawyer and the last scene is Yazi walks on the
beach alone in her hometown, China. The filmmaker let us to guess how the story
will go. Will the child grow up? How will their life be? It also implies Hong
Kong has no control of how its society will be.
(594 words)
Lai Oi Man
10559035 / 21241765
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