Ghosts (2007) Synopsis:
Ai Qin, a young Chinese girl from Fujian, China, borrows $25,000 to pay Snakeheads to smuggle her into the UK illegally so she can support her son and family back in China. Once in the UK she becomes another one of 3 million migrant workers that are the bedrock of its food supply chain, construction and hospitality industries. She lives with eleven other Chinese in a two-bedroom suburban house. With illegally forged work permits, they work in factories preparing food for British supermarkets. In their search for better paying jobs to repay their debts they end up cockling in Morecambe Bay at night. On February 5th 2004 twenty three Chinese drowned in Morecambe, their families in China are still paying off their debts.
Ghosts (2007) Movie Review:
British filmmaker Broomfield shifts into dramatic features with this doc-style drama based on real events. It's a strikingly well-made film, highlighting a serious issue in a powerfully resonant way.
Ai Qin is a single mother in Fujian, China, who decides to go work in England to support her parents and young son back home. Leaving them behind is painful, but that's nothing compared to the gruelling six-month journey by land, illegally crossing the Channel inside a secret compartment in a lorry. Once in Britain, her exhausting work includes meat-packing, harvesting apples and spring onions, and cockling on the north coast. All while dodging and fighting the authorities, her minder (Zhan), a cruel landlord (Gallagher) and xenophobic members of the British public.
The title is the term the immigrants use for white people, and it also refers to the way these people are almost invisible in society. Broomfield starts with a stunning recreation of a notorious news event when 23 Chinese workers drowned while digging for cockles in 2004. From here he focuses on Ai Qin, travelling back to China to tell her story in detail. The strikingly beautiful fly-on-the-wall filming style catches the snap of real interaction, helped hugely by authentic performances.
Ai Qin is especially good; her raw, natural acting really grabs hold in the intensely emotional scenes. We can feel her aching homesickness, her horror at the hopelessness of her situation and small moments of joy and camaraderie she discovers along the way. This method of filmmaking echoes Michael Winterbottom's excellent In This World but adds a much deeper emotional resonance that turns the issue of human trafficking into an evocative, personally relevant story.
Along the way, Broomfield drops in details, facts and figures, either in dialog or subtitles, so we know exactly what's going on, how much money these people are earning, who's to blame and exactly why they're trapped with nowhere to turn. In this sense, their abuse at the hands of narrow-minded thugs is even more brutal. And even as Broomfield provocatively makes the political point, the film's haunting strength is in its personal story, which will forever change the way we see economic refugees.
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Ghosts (2007) review written by: Rich Cline
7th October, 2008 
