I had actually skimmed through this movie awhile back (probably over a year or so) and decided it didn’t look worth watching. However, after being recommended again by ChemChampion, I gave it another shot. The movie was actually quite beautiful and intriguing. I was actually shocked that the trailer below practically revealed nothing. As you know with trailers today, they always reveal too much.
IMDb: 7.6/10 (8,890 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B+ / Yahoo! Users: B
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 94% / Average Rating: 7.8
Teaser Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Spoilers: (Show)
The movie is basically about some the untold story about London or basically any big city which is run on the backs of immigrants (legal or illegal). The story focuses on 2 of these immigrants, Okwe and Senay (pronounced Shenay apparently). Senay is a refugee that has seeked asylum, while Okwe is an African who apparently has quite a complicated history/past. You know he’s very educated and is good with medicine. Everyone calls him doctor and one of the first scene, you see him go down when another guy pulls down his pants. It was quite disturbing until you realize that guy contracted an STD of some sort and needed it to be looked at.
So the other characters involved in this story include a hooker, a greeter (doorman), Senor Juan (owner or manager of the hotel), and a mortuary person named Guo Yi, which all play a role in the escape.
So the story revolves in the underground selling of body parts (especially the kidney). This is facilitated by Senor Juan. He gets paid £10,000 for the kidney and in return, he gives the “donor” an identity (basically a passport).
At first, I thought the story was going to loop back where it turns out that the STD was transmitted by the hooker, but that wasn’t the case.
The story basically ends up with Senay having reacher her snapping point and wants to leave this system and go to America, Senor Juan tries to coax Okwe into helping him perform the kidney removal surgeries, and Okwe trying to convince Senay there’s a better life if she can hold on.
I’m not going to reveal the ending nor Okwe’s past, because it’s worth that much to see it. One thing I will say, was I was expecting Okwe to actually not run away and when he picked up the phone, to actually call the cops. In other words, I thought his story about his daughter in Lagos was made up to trick Senay to get her to leave. But it turns out it was a true story and I was once again fooled.
One thing I didn’t understand was the story behind the heart. Didn’t Okwe go into that room because the hooker said that room needed cleaning up? The room looked like someone just had sex with the ash tray on the bed. Does that mean the heart was already in the toilet in that room before the sex? If the heart is in the toilet, what happened to the rest of the body? It’s just questionable why someone would want to flush down the heart. Did it have anything to do with the hooker?
Another thing I didn’t get was way back in the beginning of the movie where Okwe was trying to get people to take the cab, the person asks, “Are you from Sajit?” Okwe replies, “I’m not here to meet you in particular, but I am here to rescue those who’ve been let down by the system.” After which the 2 men decide to take the cab. At first I thought this was just some code, like a secret message they’re suppose to use to contact each other, but they never showed up again. The conversation was sort of cryptic.
The last thing I didn’t get was why the immigration office was after Senay. They let her seek asylum here, but won’t let her work? What gives? Do they expect her to just find food magically? That part didn’t make sense, or it might just be the director pointing out a flaw in the asylum program that England has.
