Bugis Street
Reviewed by YTSL
There is a jokey Malaysian story about an elderly
Malaysian lady who went and visited her country’s neighbor to the south; an
urban island nation that may well be best known in much of the world for
its government having made chewing gum illegal within its borders and also
for the caning that was administered to an American youth for some (minor)
acts of vandalism. Upon her return to a land that itself is not exactly
known for being all that lawless, she was asked for her impressions of the
infamously strict plus straight-laced territory. Her arch -- but surely
not entirely untruthful -- response was that “Singapore is a fine city.
Fine here, fine there, fine everywhere!”
In many ways, the prim and proper reputation of this oft described “Switzerland
or Disneyland, but without the humor” can be said to have been well earned.
At the same time, that whose Malay name of Singapura translates into English
as Lion City also happens to be rather (in)famous for being a leading sex-change
center. For those who don’t know about a certain colorful strand of
Singapore’s social history and community, it can seem rather puzzling as
to why people might choose to flock to this notably uptight part of the world
to undergo such operations. Ditto re why it is that a (foreign) film
maker like Yonfan would set a seriously daring -- not least because it is
filled with socio-cultural convention-flouting and -breaking folks -- cinematic
work that could be described as “Days of Being Wild” meets “The Iron Ladies”
there.
However this befuddlement ought to decrease upon learning that, up until
its fairly recent “rehabilitation” and “gentrification” by the national government,
Singapore’s BUGIS STREET area happened to be one of the most notable environs
-- if not the very place -- to go to gawk at, pick up and fraternize with
often very beautiful ladies of the night who actually were transsexuals and
transvestites rather than the more usual heterosexual or homosexual females.
For the record: Many of this attractively lensed (by Jacky Tang) effort’s
talented and often very photogenic cast come from the ranks of those who
appeared to have, in real life, found like-minded folks and people who accepted
them for what they were in that particular section of the Lion City.
Relatedly, it is precisely these so-called “fake women”’s insular -- but
far from introverted -- very world that “the powers that be” behind this
1995 Hong Kong-Singaporean co-production looked to have set out to capture
on celluloid plus explore; albeit primarily from the perspective of a sweet
plus initially almost painfully innocent “real girl” who was on the brink
of genuine womanhood when she first appeared at the establishment that turned
out to be home to those personalities who form the very heart of this dramatic
work.
Sixteen-year-old Lien (who is winningly portrayed by Vietnamese actress,
Hiep Thi Le) is this Yonfan helmed and co-scripted -- with Fruit Chan and
You Chan -- offering’s main character. Despite her having already worked
for a time -- as a former house servant in a household whose “young master”
adored her -- in her hometown of Malacca (in Malaysia), the young lass comes
across as having led a surprisingly sheltered life prior to her coming to
be employed as a maid at the Sin Sin Hotel. Either that or she seemed
thoroughly content for a time to possess a naïve, illusion-creating
as well as highly romanticized point of view with regards to such as the
ill-mannered goings-on that she (mis-)construed to be “the sad departure
of an American gentleman” from the home as well as workplace of “his Chinese
girl” (but actually had involved a now angrily sober American sailor who
had belatedly discovered that the Singaporean Chinese prostitute he had picked
up in BUGIS STREET and spent a drunken night with (also) happened to be a
drag queen).
Before too long into her stay in this particular former British colony though,
the Sin Sin Hotel’s new employee -- and this Category III rated movie’s viewers
in the bargain -- gets presented with indisputable visual evidence that many
of the long(er) term lodgers of the budget establishment -- whose room rental
rate is S$3, be it for an hour or whole day and night -- are the kind of
women who were born with male bodies. Although her first reaction to
seeing someone equipped with a pair of feminine breasts but also a penis
is that of vomit-inducing shock and revulsion, she -- who also had wanted
to up stakes and flee from its BUGIS STREET neighborhood ASAP post catching
sight of such an individual -- ended up not giving in to her initial impulses.
Instead, she listened to, then heeded, the warm cajoling of Lola, the (transvestite)
hotel resident who had treated Lien very well right from the start of the
Malaccan girl’s Singaporean stint, to not be afraid of the often very special
-- plus complex -- personalities whose admittedly unorthodox community the
young lass had been slowly but surely becoming an accepted part of.
As she learns to see beyond the surface and become more accepting of those
of her fellow human beings who less sensitive others might callously label
as freakishly abnormal, BUGIS STREET’s female protagonist is rewarded with
the generous friendship of the likes of the cosmopolitan and sophisticated
Drago: a thoroughly elegant gem of a human being who had returned from Paris
to minister to his/her dying -- but loving and tolerant, to the end -- mother.
Even while Lien came to have her eyes opened wider than she might have wished
(via such as her encounters with Meng -- the slimy plus often under-dressed
boyfriend of Lola -- as well as over the course of a night out on the town
with some of the Sin Sin Hotel’s other denizens), the herself never entirely
conformist personality finds herself coming by the kind of educational life
experiences that appear to have enabled her to believe that she had truly,
and valuably, come of age. In sum: She learns to see beauty in unlikely
places and to grow despite the presence of ugliness in our imperfect world.
If only we were as able to do so.
My rating for this film: 7.5
