Pleasure Factory

Director: Ekachai Uekrongtham

Cast:
Yang Kuei-Mei || Ananda Everingham ||Loo Zihan || Xu Er || Katashi Chen || Isabella Chen || Jeszlene Zhou || Ian Francis Low

Pleasure Factory comprises of a series of 3 vignettes: a NS boy is escorted by his army buddy into Geylang to lose his virginity; a young girl is being initiated into the sex trade; and a jaded prostitute picks up a young busker for a song . . . Prostitution as an institution of negotiable relations thus becomes the backdrop against which the stories of alienation, (filial) love and unspeakable longing are played.

Separate stories, the paths of the protagonists cross only incidentally, reminding us that Geylang isn't such a big place after all. While the docudrama maps the spatial boundaries of Geylang, we are also taken down the darkened alleys of the sex trade, so to speak, where women are sold like exotic products off a shelf, marketed by their looks and ethnicity.


(Fishbowls and aquariums form a controlling theme throughout the film. It is easy to imagine why a fishbowl would be an apt metaphor--but perhaps it is already a cinematic translation of a metaphor. Some brothels in Geylang are informally known as "fish tanks" (魚缸). The rationale, as I've been told--is that the women sit behind a glass and the clients pick them.)