Little Cheung

Xilu Xiang is the last part of Fruit Chan’s trilogy about the Chinese takeover of the port and immigration city Hong Kong. The first two parts, Made in Hong Kong and The Longest Summer, have already been screened in Rotterdam. In this part, we see the social and personal consequences of the transition through the eyes of a boy of nine, the little Cheung.When Cheung is not at school, he works as delivery boy for his father’s restaurant. Because his parents are always working, Cheung spends a lot of time with his grandma and Ami, the Filipino maid. On one of his trips around town, Cheung meets Fan, a girl of his age who washes up in a restaurant (the same girl can also be seen in Fruit Chan’s other film at the festival, Durian Durian). Together with Fan he sets off and has some comic adventures. For instance they make fun of an irritating gangster by pissing in his tea and Cheung thinks up a very inventive way to earn money to buy a Tamagotchi. However Cheung’s life is not always pleasant. For instance, against the will of his father he goes looking for his brother, who has been renounced by his family for becoming a gangster. And when Fan and her family are arrested as illegal immigrants in Hong Kong, the maid returns to the Philippines and his grandma dies, Cheung grows up: from a carefree boy to a young adult.