I appreciate what this movie was going for and it's always a treat to see Maggie Cheung on the screen, but after setting up its initial premise, this went downhill quickly. Cheung plays a wife and mother who comes to New York on a student visa she's had to scratch and claw to get, hoping to create a better life for her family. When the letters stop, her husband (Tony Leung Ka-fai) enters the country illegally to try to find her. Terrible events ensue for both of them.
This undoubtedly would qualify as misery porn and it's a depressing enough story to start with, but on top of that, the way it's told is sloppy and the events are over-the-top to say the least. Destitution, accidental murder, rape, prostitution, fraud, robbery, mental illness, punks partying in demonic ways in the park ... it's almost as if in trying to describe the hardships of the immigrant experience and the splitting of identity that the film becomes propaganda to not immigrate. (The link to splitting identity is how I read the last scene, but it was such a tortured exaggeration that it was ridiculous).
Meanwhile, there is a chipper 15 year old prostitute the man comes across (and eventually pimps for) who is a character that felt incredibly inauthentic and made me cringe on multiple levels. It's notable that both women develop ugly, Americanized sides to them, refusing to speak Chinese and more than once use a racial slur against their own people.
It's really too bad because there was emotional potential in this story of immigration, you can tell Maggie Cheung really tried to sink her teeth into this role, and director Clara Law showed flashes of talent with her color palette and framing. This is one to skip though.
