by FIZZA QURESHI
From hiring an Urdu-speaking dialogue coach to portraying the struggles faced by Pakistani migrants, director Lau Kok Rui made sure his film is authentic in its portrayal.
When I first arrived in Hong Kong as an international student, I was pleasantly surprised by signs of home dotted across the city. There were Pakistani grocery stores in every other neighbourhood; echoes of Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi in various public spaces, and restaurants specialising in different South Asian cuisines that didn’t let me miss Karachi’s food scene.
Currently, Hong Kong is home to a large South Asian community that has had ties to the city since pre-colonial times. This demographic is true for other East Asian cities as well. But, generally speaking, these communities remain outside mainstream imaginations of what the South Asian ‘diaspora’ looks like.
These imaginings are often informed by big American productions such as Ms Marvel and Never Have I Ever. As a result, we often encounter representations of South Asian diaspora based in the West, but we rarely see the lives and experiences of those settled across East Asia.
Despite the prolific success of East Asian entertainment industries, production houses are seldom interested in telling non-East Asian stories. This blind spot exists in Hong Kong’s entertainment industry as well, which for decades was the third largest motion picture industry in the world.
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