My Name Ain't Suzie

For Shui-Mei (Pat Ha) servicing men is not only a legitimate career option, it’s practically expected of her. There’s no money in the fishing village which is home. Sent to a brothel in Hong Kong she quickly learns her trade, and sets about making it work for her.

Set between the mid 1950s and 1980, My Name Ain’t Suzie is an ambitious and surprising feminist film to come from the Shaw Brothers studio in 1985. As the title implies, it’s direct riposte to romantic western fare like The World of Suzie Wong (1960). Director Angie Chen, making only her second feature, set out to make as accurate a portrait of the HK bargirl trade as possible, and even cast several of them in bit parts. She also hit paydirt with her two leads, Pat Ha and Anthony Wong (in his first film). Despite this, the studio lost faith in the movie, and gave it only a token release. It is only over the past decade that the film has begun to be recognized for its enduring merit.

May 27: Q&A with director Angie Chen

My Name Ain’t Suzie is a gem in the history of Hong Kong as well as international cinema. [It] remains a film that fascinates on so many levels: as a work of a brilliant film auteur; as a sign of the shift in local cinema; as a feminist statement; as a cinematic image of Hong Kong in the past; as a critique of Orientalism and generalized representation of the Far East reproduced in Hollywood films.

Maja Korbecka, Eastern Kicks