Blue Sun Palace

The same could be said for Constance Tsang’s understated debut feature. Somewhere between the slow cinema of Tsai Ming-liang and slice-of-life indie, the film explores grief with unusual sensitivity. Neither the restaurant nor the massage parlor where much of the story takes place are called Blue Sun Palace, whose ultimate location — and what it represents — are left ambiguous until the end.

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It might take you a while to realize that all of this unfolds in Flushing, Queens, as the film is so immersed in New York’s largest Chinese community that it initially appears to take place in the Middle Kingdom itself. English is only spoken when American customers enter the massage parlor, and even then only briefly. The rest of the time, the all-female employees chat among themselves with the relaxed, easy chemistry of coworkers-turned-friends who’ve been through it together. Working a dissatisfying — and, based on the implications of the “no sexual services” sign taped to the entrance, dispiriting — job together isn’t exactly a trauma bond, but Tsang has a keen eye for the porous nature of such relationships.

Not much happens for the first half hour, hence why the title card doesn’t appear until a sudden burst of violence on Lunar New Year cleaves the film in two: then and now, before and after. That technique has become increasingly common in recent years, but here it feels like a necessary demarcation rather than a trendy stylistic flourish. In the aftermath, our two surviving main characters — a younger woman named Amy (Wu Ke-xi) and an older man named Cheung (Lee Kang-sheng) — fill the void by befriending one another in a manner vaguely reminiscent of Lost in Translation, including a karaoke session.

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Watching them together is bittersweet. You’re glad they have someone to bond with but sad that they have to in the first place. We soon learn that Cheung fled Taiwan due to a series of debts and the increasingly dangerous creditors trying to collect them, leaving behind a wife and daughter. When he speaks to them, it’s about the money he has or hasn’t sent — sometimes the transfer doesn’t go through, and sometimes he’s short. Whatever tenderness there once was has long since hardened, leaving Cheung to seek solace elsewhere.

You're glad they have someone to bond with but sad that they have to in the first place.

Even the relationships that aren’t literally transactional are distant and strained, though, with the few attempts at genuine connection we see ending poorly. They’re all ships in the night, either afraid or incapable of handling the feelings that would arise should they let their guard down. Whether they consciously realize it or not, Amy and Cheung are essentially trying to substitute one friend with another. But neither has the cheerfulness required to make their time together feel like much more than a two-person support group.

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This isn’t as dour as it sounds. Tsang’s approach is patient but not withholding, like a documentarian focused on the gradual accumulation of everyday details and what they reveal about the lives of her characters. She often leaves the camera on them for several unbroken minutes at a time, allowing us to settle into each scene alongside them and forget that we’re watching actors. Lee, a luminary of Taiwanese cinema who has appeared in all 11 of his countryman Tsai’s films, gives the impression of an elder statesman doing his part as a rising talent finds her cinematic voice. It’s quiet here, but Tsang clearly has much more to say. We should listen.