Kuaile gongchang

According to Pleasure Factory, Geylang was once an area where factories process coconuts, but now have given way to brothels providing pleasure, with pimps eager to hawk their latest acquisitions to anyone loitering a little while longer. Perhaps it's like Vegas, where what happens in Geylang stays in Geylang, that the characters here all have a propensity of not speaking. I would have no issues on this if the visuals, which paint a kaleidoscope of beautiful imagery showcasing the lure of the bright lights and the seedier side of what dwells amongst the shadows, can maintain a movie on its own before starting to look like Discovery Channel, but too often the narrative found itself caught up in the moment with its characters, in obvious short stories forced together through casual circumstances.

The three stories here were actually like snapshots, everything given on the surface, and without much depth. The first story is the perennial army boy seeking to pop his cherry, and what better way to do so than with someone of experience. Loo Zihan (who co-directed and was one of the leads in Solos) stars as the Jonathan the army boy who while at first seemed shy and unwilling, on the goading of a friend Kiat (Katashi Chen), managed to decide on the services of a buxom girl from China, Xue Er. I thought this story was the best amongst the three, in that it had clear direction in what it wanted to get at, interjected with good humour. It also painted the motivations of all the characters clearly, highlighting the play acting and masks that people wear, whether we really know the deep dark secret desires that others have in mind, and dalliances on love, lust, and of course, the virgin experience.

Unfortnately, that cannot be said of the story involving the veterans Ananda Everingham and Yang Kuei-Mei, who's a regular in Tsai Mi ng-liang movies, that Pleasure Factory tries hard to emulate its minimalistic and reliance on visual language, with dismal results. People hardly talk here, and the visuals relied a fair bit on the unsteadicam as it weaves about and around the corridors of a budget hotel. While Yang's Linda and Isabella Chan's teenage girl has a mother-daughter love-hate relationship suggested, it was Ananda's Chris that proved to be the story arc's undoing, given that his character had no clear motivation at all. He just appears, hesitates, feels sorry, and that's it, finding it hard to communicate to the duo given that he speaks only English.

And it's not the characters alone that have unclear objectives and motivations. The movie too was disjointed in itself, having succumbed to schizophrenic moments where it inserted two documentary styled interview footage into the narrative structure, thus having those sticking out like a sore thumb. While much of the narrative is fictional in nature, I thought that it may have felt a need to have a mockumentary(?) mouthpiece to provide us some candid answers, albeit for a short while only.

The remaining story arc puts the spotlight on a pleasure giver, a hot girl in a red dress (played by Jeszlene Zhou), the regular plaything of a old, pudgy man driving a sports car, who while jaded with satisfying the lusty old man, as a person she too yearns the desire for love / lust being satisfied. I thought this was a more of a conventional treatment of Herman Yau's Whispers and Moans in its tit-for-tat moment, but it does open one's eyes to having to resort to innovative methods to solicit, and cements the term "Special" being us ed in the trade.

In circumstances where you tell the pimp your fantasies and get them fulfilled somewhat, Pleasure Factory did not manage to do just that. You have a basic idea what you want to get at. and while it's packaged very nicely on the outside, the skills for pleasuring the senses dispensed unfortunately didn't provide for a satisfying time. But this is Geylang after all. Fans will undoubtedly have no hesitation to see how their playground gets depicted in a feature length film, while those curious enough or have never stepped foot into its territory, would probably prefer to see it through a filmmaker's lens first.

I don’t know how other feel about this movie, but for me I feel riff off (even after I got the movie pass for free). The movie pass that allow me to see any other movies in the Cineplex but I opted for this. The trailer looks so awesome – very emotional, the music add to the great mood, but the real movie is nothing like that.

Synopsis: Can’t really say what it is about actually, it a movie that feels like documentary but feel like neither of them. I can’t explain synopsis for this movie at all except it about a red light district in Singapore and some girls and men involve in having sex; that about it.

Normally like this kind of drama, a movie fills with emotion and metaphor. But for this I can’t find neither of them; nor at the end I was kind of lost of what the message is the director is actually trying to say. All I can come up is that he wanted us to have a look at the life in the red light district, which is about it. Noting else.

For me it was very disappointing, there are no proper story for me, too simple yet complicated and painfully slow. Maybe I think too much of it, but there are no story and also at the same time this can’t be called a documentary, cause if it a documentary I would feel even worst. The direction feels more like documentary though and some of the shot and angel is well done, the editing is alright but the soundtrack give way for the movie very well. Well cast and well perform. The only problem for me was the story, which is the most major thing for me.

Reason To Watch: Sorry, Can’t Think Of Recommending It.

Reason Not To: For Me, No Proper Story.

Rating: 4/10 (Grade: D-)

Please Rate Y/N after Read, Thanks.

I am not a Singaporean, neither have I been there before. I can't tell the stories I saw in the movie was 100% but I guess some maybe correct. There is a lot of messages that the messages that the movie wants to deliver. For example, some sex workers choose to see sex to support their families while some doing it for tuitions, clothes and other luxury items. That's basically true. A lot of sex workers encounter violent and demanding clients, which is also true. Some clients fall in love with sex workers, and vise versa. That's true. Sadly, whether you like it or not, the fact that some evil parents would prostitute their children for money is also true, especially in less developed countries. Not too much music you can hear in the movie and a lot of street sights and brothels gave me a feeling that the movie was trying to tell a true story about a red light district in Singapore.