re:mote voices

Title: Foreign Moon
Cast:Vicky Chen, Harrison Liu, Daming Chen
Director:Zeming Zhang

When Lan Lan arrives in London, she finds herself lost and helpless, her sponsor not having turned up to meet her. As a result she latches on to the first Chinese person that she comes across, Su Tong, who agrees to help her find her sponsor's house. Lan Lan has come to London to study the flute at music college, but the sponsorship she is recieving comes with an unexpected catch - she is expected to marry the man's son.

Appalled by this turn of events Lan Lan flees, running to the only other person she knows in London, Su Tong. Su Tong helps her get set up, and when he and his room mate set up an illegal chinese take away run from their bedsit she moves in to help out. But there are tensions, one woman living with two men - one of whom is young and always after a new woman, the other is older and waiting desperately for his wife and son to be allowed to join him from China.

Foreign Moon is clearly a low budget film, that looks dated now, and feels like a first feature for all those involved. Still it presents an interesting enough snapshot of London's Chinese community, and the lot of immigrants. There isn't a great depth, and the film seems to wander in an episodic manner at times, but there are scenes which seem to convey the ideas behind the story better than others.