Two young female moviemakers who worked together on a school video assignment when they were teens are behind the film “Sisterhood” shown at the Macau International Film Festival in December 2016. The movie captures the changing face of Macau as the casino industry dominated the area.
The film features masseuses working in the massage parlors in Macau. They represent the Macau of the past, according to Asia Times. For director Tracy Choi, one of the two filmmakers behind “Sisterhood,” the older women of Macau whom she knew, like the masseuses of the 1990s in the movie, are people with forthright and generous spirit and represent the Macau she knows best.
Ex-Masseuse Returns Home
In the movie, Hong Kong actress Gigi Leung played a former masseuse who moved to Taiwan and revisits Macau when she learned that her former best friend died. She failed to recognize Macau when Sei, the character of Leung, when home for a visit.
Similarly, Choi had the same experience after the studied filmmaking at Shih Hsin University in Taiwan in 2010. She felt a change in the atmosphere and a totally different environment when she came back to Macau. It goes beyond new buildings but on the change in the relationship among people from people she was familiar with to total strangers working at different shifts of 7-Eleven stores.
Some of her friends were still around, but some are now working in the casinos in marketing or promotional roles. However, she and best friend and fellow moviemaker Simmy Cheong in the school project continue to collaborate on many projects which in one way or another document the changing face of Macau.
Tight Budget
They shot “Sisterhood” on a budget of HK$6 million, plus a grant of 1.5 million Macau patacas from the Macau government which further opened more grants from other film companies. Cheong also studied film in Taiwan, specializing in cinematography.
Choi’s next project is the role of women in Macau. “A lot of films have been made in Macau, but not many about Macau. I want to do more films about Macau – especially about the lives of people here now that so much has changed,” Choi explained.
In its review of “Sisterhood,” The Hollywood Reporter commends the two women for not using the sex-worker storylines as an excuse to make “retrogressive, titillating presentations of young women.” It pointed out that Choi did not milk the profession for onscreen sleaze or sex but instead focuses on how business in the massage parlors is a reflection of the city’s ups and downs.