The multi-talented Chui Mui Tan stars, writes, and directs in her martial arts film of self-discovery and redemption, in Barbarian Invasion, presented in the Harbour Section of the 2022 International Rotterdam Film Festival.
One of the film sections of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) echoes Rotterdam’s port city identity: the Harbour section offers a safe haven to the full range of contemporary cinema that the festival champions. At IFFR 2022, which ran from January 26th to February 6th, one could discover or rediscover titles such as Clara Sola (Nathalie Álvarez Mesén) or El Gran Movimiento (Kiro Russo), as part of the Harbour section. But also: Chui Mui Tan’s Barbarian Invasion.
The winner of the Shanghai International Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize, Barbarian Invasion, is a creative depiction of storytelling on your own terms by writer, director, and leading actor, Chui Mui Tan. In Barbarian Invasion, Chui plays Lee Yoon Moon, a renowned actress who is performing the leading role for her next film, a Malaysian adaptation of The Bourne Identity. She teams up with her usual director, Roger Woo, and as he writes the story as he goes, he enrolls Moon, in month-long martial arts training to get her ready for the role. As viewers, we see Moon in intense martial arts combat training leaving her bruised up but determined to learn. When the director gets informed by his producers that they’re offering him a much more substantial amount of money for the film, but with a new leading actress, he lets Moon know before deciding. She decides to opt out of the film, and the next day as she’s about to leave, he informs her that he did not accept his producer’s offer and chooses her instead. Moon, who adamantly decides to quit, begins to leave the town. What comes next is the tonal shift, yet smartly uses her martial arts background to her advantage.
In this genre, martial arts film, Moon decides to take control of her story. On her way back home, her son, is kidnapped, and she goes on a revenge tour. Although the story goes through a major shift in story telling in terms of meta, self-referential filmmaking (which seems to be more topical in this age), Moon catches herself in a state of memory loss (a funny call back to the Identity in The Bourne Identity). As she traces back to herself and her son, memories and her past are interweaved seamlessly, leaving the “ah-ha” moment in which only so few films do so.
