The Dumpling Queen

"The cure for poverty has a name, in fact: it's called the empowerment of women."

With Trump seeking to isolate the U.S. further with his proposed 100% tariff on 'foreign' made movies, I found myself in the cinema for The Dumpling Queen. This nostalgic and true story of a mainland single mother arriving in Hong Kong with her two daughters, struggling to find work, is captivating and deeply inspiring. 

It resonates with the challenges many Hongkongers faced. Through sheer tenacity, Zhang Jianhe prevails in a tale that takes her from street hawker to heading one of Hong Kong's largest food companies. 

At the film's beginning, we learn that Zhang is abandoned in Hong Kong by her husband, who has taken another wife in Thailand. This second wife has borne a son, earning her a favoured position. Zhang faces a future as a de facto concubine, serving her husband and his new wife. Zhang rejects this role. 

Set in the late 1970s, when Hong Kong was grappling with a surge of legal and illegal migration, the city was bursting at its seams. The touch-base policy, which allowed Mainlanders to secure their status in Hong Kong, abruptly ended by 1980, leading to profound personal consequences for many.

Zhang, a trained nurse with a qualification not recognised here, is forced to take a menial job while she builds a life for herself and her children. Scenes of Zhang and her kids assembling toys evoke the work my wife did after school to earn a few bucks. 

The street scenes are instantly recognisable to anyone who lived through that era. Similarly, the clusters of food hawkers at the public piers must dash away, hot fat flying, leaving customers holding utensils when the police approach. 

As a new inspector on patrol, I wandered nonchalantly into Bowring Street, Yaumati, to witness a stampede of hawkers, knocking over pedestrians and bashing carts into cars as they fled. Perplexed, it took me a moment to recognise I was the cause. All that came back to me in the dark of the cinema. 

The superb cast delivers deeply engaging performances, including Hong Kong stalwarts like Kara Ying Hung Wai and Cho-Lam Wong. In the lead role, Li Ma captures the inner strength it must have taken to persevere despite many hardships. 

Kara Ying's landlord hints at a deeply troubling past. She takes Zhang under her wing, providing the family with a roof and a degree of stability, showcasing the resilience of the human spirit. 

While the movie presents a compelling narrative, my only critique is that it may have overdone the emotional manipulation. The lachrymose music often heralded another scene of Zhang staring into the distance as yet more setbacks befell her. Meanwhile, the frequent harbour panorama views, a neat piece of CGI, showcased the Queen Elizabeth II liner steaming along. This repetition felt excessive.

Plus, I would have liked to see more of the backstory of the tenement residents, who shared the crowded space with Zhang and her girls. This interesting group of characters lived cheek by jowl in single rooms with a tiny shared kitchen and bathroom.

The movie has been a massive success at the box office, dominating the holiday season in China. Media reports indicate that it earned a staggering 748 million yuan (HK$797 million) from May 1 to May 5, a testament to its compelling narrative and powerful performances.

It's unclear whether Trump would regard such a story as propaganda; however, he appears concerned that significant success stories from other parts of the world might conflict with his worldview. 

Still, as I left the cinema, I was reminded of the line from the late great Christopher Hitchens, "The cure for poverty has a name, in fact: it's called the empowerment of women." If that's propaganda, bring it on