Within the first few seconds of the official trailer for Tan Chui Mui’s new drama, Barbarian Invasion, you might bid that what happens to the two police officers approaching our unsuspecting protagonist sleeping on a park bench doesn’t end well if Doug Liman’s 2002 remake of classic spy thriller The Bourne Identity is anything to by.
Alas, that’s part of the aesthetic we’re handed here, with Tan wearing multiple hats for her third outing as director, in addition to writing the script and starring as the lead for her first feature in over ten years. The film also just won the Jury Grand Prix from the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival’s Golden Goblet Awards, beating out 12 competitors at that, so that’s something!
Moon Lee, a celebrated award-winning actress, has become a full-time mom and divorcée since retiring. Desperate to regain her sense of self, she jumps at the chance to work with her long-time collaborator, director Roger Woo, again. Only this time, he casts her as the lead in a do-your-own stunts martial arts film.
There’s much more to the story that speaks aptly to the title in its meaning, but there’s a deeper focus in play here that’s trending with the latest discission about the film and its win, in conjunction with its multilingual format. If you’re the festival-going type, I reckon you’ll be wise to keep an eye out for this one.
Tan produced the pic via her Da Huang Pictures. It was funded by China’s own Heaven Pictures and the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, both shepherds of B2B A Love Supreme – a film grant announced in 2019 for six filmmakers to produce a total of six high-quality films.
I learned about this one reading Marco Ferrarese’s report on the project at SCMP which dives into the film, the filmmakers, and the steadfast production process the film undertook during the pandemic last year, and you can read more about it here.
