Contrary to what this may lead you to think, the title of this 2006 film is not about the supernatural. It’s about the ghosts in our society, those we rely upon for hard labour, and yet whose necessity and existence we’d rather deny.
This film is a fictitious backstory to a real-world tragedy: the drowning of 23 illegal Chinese workers, who were cockle-pickers at Morecambe Bay in the UK. The story follows one particular illegal immigrant – Ai Quin – from her start in China, to her difficulties in the British system.
The film is for the most part in Chinese. There are no subtitles – and yet the direction and emotion is such that you never become lost in the story. The performance by the lead actress – herself an illegal immigrant in real life – is extremely well done. Never is there this feeling that this is acted.
None of the characters seem out of place, nor do the hostile environments under which they work seem unfamiliar. Along with the camera-shooting style, this imbues the film with a documentary-like quality, which makes it’s message all the more powerful. Through covering the human-angle of this story, and a few statistics, the film promotes a highly critical view of the great hypocrisy towards the modern treatment of illegal workers in the UK. With three million illegal immigrant workers across Great Britain, there is no doubt that they have a large role to play in sustaining the manual-labour intensive sector of the economy. Yet there is a denial about both their relevance and need, as is highlighted through the way they are treated by the system.
All in all, I very much recommend that you watch this film. Politics aside, it is a riveting and beautifully-acted story.