The comeback movie of indie filmmaker and pioneer of Malaysian New Wave Cinema, Tan Chui Mui, after 10 years of directing hiatus, is an unpredictable, genre-fluid meta film. “Barbarian Invasion” was realised under the project “Back to Basics” by Hong Kong International Film Festival Society Limited and Heaven Pictures, that assigned a budget of RMB¥1,000,000 to filmmakers and challenged them to produce a high-quality film without frills. Her work is doing rather well in the festival circuit, having won the Jury Grand Prix prize, one of the two top honours at the Golden Goblet Awards, in conjunction with the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival.
“Barbarian Invasion” is screening at New York Asian Film Festival
The film follows Moon Lee (directress Tan Chui Mui) a well-respected actress who's taken few years off after having a child and a painful divorce. She is immediately introduced as exhausted and barely coping with her demanding child while travelling to a location on the coast to reunite with her director friend Roger Woo (Pete Teo) who had previously directed her in award-winning roles. Roger wants her again as the lead of his new film, a do-your-own stunts action movie that he describes as a “Southeast Asian version of The Bourne Identity”.
For Moon, this is a great occasion for a long due comeback and therefore she happily lets him persuade her to start the hard physical training for the film with a local martial arts' team, under sifu Master Loh (James Lee). Moon leaves her child with Roger's assistant while she trains every day, and her clumsy and disconnected body slowly blossoms into a kick-ass fighting machine. Until one day Roger breaks the bad news; the financers are urging him to cast in the male role the box-office sensation Juillard (Bront Palarae) who also happens to be Moon's ex-husband. This is a non-negotiable “advise” and despite Roger's encouragements and flattering, Moon is adamant she can't handle a collaboration with a man she now despises; it's him or her and she decides to quit. But a dramatic event forces her to step in and take her fate into her own hands.
“Barbarian Invasion” strikes without a doubt as a very personal film for Tan Chui Mui, and consequently it strongly feels that it wouldn't have had the same impact if the lead role had been given to another actress. Tan Chui Mui decides to play Moon and face the challenge of juggling the two roles of director and lead actress, and to what result! The intriguing and multi-layered script (also from Mui), where the boundaries between Moon and the film heroine becomes gradually blurred, is enriched by the director persona and her own emotional background. Not to forget her good acting skills, that we have already appreciated in another troublesome motherhood role in Jacky Yeap's “Sometime Sometime”.
To add originality and meta-gravity to Mui's mix of roles, lots of fellow indie filmmakers and good friends of the director are in the cast and crew, and some of them are directors themselves; filmmaker Woo Ming Jin and Bianca Balbuena (Philippines) as producers, singer, composer and filmmaker Pete Teo, and actor Bront Palarae, as main cast. Independent filmmaker James Lee was action director on the real set as well as in the fictional set, playing Master Loh, Moon's ruthless trainer.
An intimate journey, a search for the inner self is indeed at the centre of the movie but this is not only a spiritual journey. In fact, it is an intensely physical and bodily experience. What the protagonist is trying to reclaim is nothing more than her own body over which she's lost control as a direct consequence of motherhood. The barbarian of the title that invaded and messed up her life is indeed her child as from political theorist Hannah Arendt's quote: “Every generation, Western Civilization is invaded by barbarians. We call them children”. Moon (and Mui) refuse the inevitable subversion of roles that society imposes to you after giving birth; that child becomes the only thing that defines you.
References to the body and body awareness are everywhere, starting with the hardness of the martial art training. She asks sifu Loh where her true self is, only to be harshly punched on her nose as a demonstration that her real self is where that pain comes from. Lines of the dialogues often refers to corporeal experiences like when Moon describes working with her ex-husband: “It would be like asking me to eat something that I have just vomited” or when the monk clearly states: “The mind is the prison of your body”.
Her cathartic re-born experience is from the sea, another important element of the movie. The film, in fact, was mainly shot in Kemaman, a small town close to Mui's seaside hometown Sungai Ular, where the directress grew up in a house very closed to the sea. Obstacles due to the pandemic had the production retire to Kuala Lumpur and adapt the production office as three different film settings. Finally, as soon the restrictions were lifted, the seaside scenes were completed.
Martial arts feature prominently in “Barbarian Invasion”. Mui said she grew up watching wuxia and martial art TV series in the 80's, but she took up some Jiu-Jitsu training only after giving birth. For the film, the team wanted to follow Matt Damon's example who trained in Krav Maga and Filipino Kali for “The Bourne Identity”, and ended up with brilliant filmmaker James Lee, an expert of Taekwondo, Muay Thai and Jiu-Jitsu, as action director and also in Master Loh's role. Lee is particularly brilliant for the sense of humour he injects in Master Loh, a brutal sifu, who talks solemnly like Bruce Lee but could easily be an impostor.
Moon is facing lots of difficult choices and metaphysical questions about her real self. However, the film oozes humour and a great sense of fun. Lots of loving nods to films are disseminated like Easter eggs. For example, a cheeky mention to Hong Sang-soo's movies that inspire the friendly director/actress dialogues over a drink between Roger and Moon, a nod to “Fight Club”, the name Moon Lee, borrowed from a Hong Kong action actress and a hilarious dilemma (red pill or blue pill?) from a monk, celebrating personal choices vs destiny and maybe also the importance of having a laugh in life.
Tan Chui Mui's latest effort is clever and emotional at the same time and with its mix of Chinese, Cantonese and Malay dialogue it is also a rare representation on screen of Malaysia's multi-ethnic background. Never before a film about reclaiming life after motherhood had been such a fun, surprising and kickass experience.
