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United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: Chinese ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), Chinese ( Dolby Digital Stereo ), Chinese ( Dolby DTS 5.1 ), English ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), English ( Dolby Digital Stereo ), English ( Dolby DTS 5.1 ), English ( Subtitles ), ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (1.85:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Anamorphic Widescreen, Featurette, Interactive Menu, Making Of, Production Notes, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: On February 5th 2004 twenty three Chinese people drowned in Morecambe Bay. Their families in China are still paying off their debts. When a young girl, Ai Qin, pays $25,000 to be smuggled into the UK in order to support her family back in China, she becomes another one of 3 million migrant workers that have become the bedrock of our economy. Forced to live with eleven other Chinese people in a two bedroom house, they work in factories preparing food for British supermarkets. Risking their lives for pennies these unprotected workers end up cockling in Morcombe Bay at night. With an extraordinary debut performance from Ai Qin Lin in a film whose principal characters are played by Chinese former illegal immigrants, Ghosts offers a unique insight into a secret world that surrounds us. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Sundance Film Festival, ...Ghosts
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This film did not get a full cinema release and the fact that it has not yet received the publicity it rightly deserves is an absolute crime. In the age of attention-grabbing sensationalised docu-cinema (Fahrenheit 911, Super Size Me, The Yes Men et al.) a film such as Ghosts, which tells the truth in such an objective and gripping way is a breath of fresh air.
Seasoned documentary-maker, Nick Broomfield manages to produce a piece of dramatic cinema which captures the essence of his documentaries, but involves the audience much more intimately with the subjects than has been possible in his previous work. From the use of a non-professional Chinese cast, through the purposely shaky camera work and even to the slightly poorly acted role of the English landlord whose property is crammed with 15 'illegals', this film just seems real.
Ghosts is very now and very timely, given the recent 200th anniversary of the abolition of the legal slave trade. It serves as a reminder that there are still millions of people throughout the world living under the control of money-lenders/gang-masters, below the radar of the general public and in the turned blind eye of their employers who get a plentiful supply of cheap labour.
Ghosts is extremely moving and most viewers will sympathise with the plight of the lead character, Ai Qin and indeed with the alleged 3 million illegal workers who are locked in to a life of hard labour in the UK's primary industries in order to pay debts which they may never clear and who may never see their homelands or families again. If anyone goes away from this film with anything but a desire to help them it will be a disappointment. At the very least I hope Ghosts will go someway to quell the increasing hostility towards immigrants in the UK; I hope that once people see the human story behind the politico-economic issue, they will think twice before criticising them.
The film's lack of publicity may be down Broomfield's lack of funding when compared to the aforementioned films which were all financed in the US. Another possibility may be that, even given the analogy with the popular docu-films, this is still in fact a dramatisation, meaning perhaps one of Broomfield's documentaries would have fared better in the current box office climate (even though this would have been impossible for this particular story).
All said, Ghosts is by far the best Nick Broomfield work I have seen and I get the feeling that it will be one of those films that increases in popularity over time purely due to word-of-mouth.
Seasoned documentary-maker, Nick Broomfield manages to produce a piece of dramatic cinema which captures the essence of his documentaries, but involves the audience much more intimately with the subjects than has been possible in his previous work. From the use of a non-professional Chinese cast, through the purposely shaky camera work and even to the slightly poorly acted role of the English landlord whose property is crammed with 15 'illegals', this film just seems real.
Ghosts is very now and very timely, given the recent 200th anniversary of the abolition of the legal slave trade. It serves as a reminder that there are still millions of people throughout the world living under the control of money-lenders/gang-masters, below the radar of the general public and in the turned blind eye of their employers who get a plentiful supply of cheap labour.
Ghosts is extremely moving and most viewers will sympathise with the plight of the lead character, Ai Qin and indeed with the alleged 3 million illegal workers who are locked in to a life of hard labour in the UK's primary industries in order to pay debts which they may never clear and who may never see their homelands or families again. If anyone goes away from this film with anything but a desire to help them it will be a disappointment. At the very least I hope Ghosts will go someway to quell the increasing hostility towards immigrants in the UK; I hope that once people see the human story behind the politico-economic issue, they will think twice before criticising them.
The film's lack of publicity may be down Broomfield's lack of funding when compared to the aforementioned films which were all financed in the US. Another possibility may be that, even given the analogy with the popular docu-films, this is still in fact a dramatisation, meaning perhaps one of Broomfield's documentaries would have fared better in the current box office climate (even though this would have been impossible for this particular story).
All said, Ghosts is by far the best Nick Broomfield work I have seen and I get the feeling that it will be one of those films that increases in popularity over time purely due to word-of-mouth.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Ghosts is a shrewd name for this film, taking on various connotations as the film progresses, before eventually becoming an apt one, as you're left haunted by its events.
With his background in hard-hitting documentaries, it's no surprise that Nick Broomfield poses many uncomfortable questions and tackles similarly chunky issues which extend much farther than the core narrative with this superb film based on the deaths of the twenty-three Chinese cockle pickers at Morecambe Bay in 2004. The tragedy itself is almost of secondary concern, this is not an exploitation of that event, Broomfield instead chooses to focus on the events that placed the illegal immigrants in such a perilous position. It comes across as a film about modern-day Britain as much as anything.
The film's protagonist, Ai Qin Li, is a young impoverished Chinese mother hoping, like many, to make a better living in Britain, illegally. Broomfield holds no punches. While the film is seen from the perspective of the migrant workers, we are reminded how they unlawfully take jobs, often with the help of bungs and always with forged documents. While they are treated unpleasantly (at best) by British citizens in all respects, you can empathise with the local gang of cockle pickers who object to them threatening their livelihoods, even if it's impossible to approve of their brutish bullying. It is the violent attack in this particular scene that forces the Chinese to return to the deadly estuaries of Morecambe Bay after dark.
Broomfield doesn't paint a picture of black and white, right and wrong, but the name-checking of the major supermarkets alludes to the real villain, and the employment agencies who the workers sign up with are also portrayed as corrupt. For the most part it's perfectly judged by Broomfield, right up to the credits where he sends viewers on a guilt trip about how the British government has done nothing to pay off the heavy debts of the dead which their families are now burdened with. Leaving you wondering just why it is that Broomfield thinks it should. It's the kind of thing that might give Bono and Chris Martin bad ideas.
Overall for Broomfield the filmmaker, it's a major success, genuinely thought-provoking and memorable, and probably the best thing he's done to date by some distance. It's very much a dramatic piece but plays on his strengths as a documentary maker. On its own it would be an easy recommendion for your DVD collection, but the bonus Making Of documentary is also a valuable extra and the scene in which Broomfield and his crew are faced with a gang of hostile local cockle pickers while filming mirrors the events in the film.
With his background in hard-hitting documentaries, it's no surprise that Nick Broomfield poses many uncomfortable questions and tackles similarly chunky issues which extend much farther than the core narrative with this superb film based on the deaths of the twenty-three Chinese cockle pickers at Morecambe Bay in 2004. The tragedy itself is almost of secondary concern, this is not an exploitation of that event, Broomfield instead chooses to focus on the events that placed the illegal immigrants in such a perilous position. It comes across as a film about modern-day Britain as much as anything.
The film's protagonist, Ai Qin Li, is a young impoverished Chinese mother hoping, like many, to make a better living in Britain, illegally. Broomfield holds no punches. While the film is seen from the perspective of the migrant workers, we are reminded how they unlawfully take jobs, often with the help of bungs and always with forged documents. While they are treated unpleasantly (at best) by British citizens in all respects, you can empathise with the local gang of cockle pickers who object to them threatening their livelihoods, even if it's impossible to approve of their brutish bullying. It is the violent attack in this particular scene that forces the Chinese to return to the deadly estuaries of Morecambe Bay after dark.
Broomfield doesn't paint a picture of black and white, right and wrong, but the name-checking of the major supermarkets alludes to the real villain, and the employment agencies who the workers sign up with are also portrayed as corrupt. For the most part it's perfectly judged by Broomfield, right up to the credits where he sends viewers on a guilt trip about how the British government has done nothing to pay off the heavy debts of the dead which their families are now burdened with. Leaving you wondering just why it is that Broomfield thinks it should. It's the kind of thing that might give Bono and Chris Martin bad ideas.
Overall for Broomfield the filmmaker, it's a major success, genuinely thought-provoking and memorable, and probably the best thing he's done to date by some distance. It's very much a dramatic piece but plays on his strengths as a documentary maker. On its own it would be an easy recommendion for your DVD collection, but the bonus Making Of documentary is also a valuable extra and the scene in which Broomfield and his crew are faced with a gang of hostile local cockle pickers while filming mirrors the events in the film.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Nick Broomfield turns his hand to fictive feature film-making brilliantly, narrativising this tale around the drowning of illegal Chinese immigrants whilst cockle-picking in Morecambe Bay back in 2004. The film is a powerful dramatisation that looks and feels almost more realistic than Broomfield's documentaries. Focusing in on the experiences of one woman (the excellent Ai Qin Lin) Ghosts tells a personal and moving story, drawing attention to incredibly important issues. Very affecting.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Highly recommended - top quality film
This DVD had been resting on my shelf for some months - I kept putting off viewing it because I feared it would be a depressing watch. Read more
Published on 16 Sep 2009 by Johnjoe66
HEART WRENCHING AND THOUGHT PROVOKING
On the night of Feb 25th 2004, 23 cockle-pickers lost their lives through drowning whilst out at night in Morecambe Bay. Read more
Published on 1 Aug 2008 by SDB MELLONIE
As powerful as they come
I watched the film last night thinking it was a 'GHOST' story. But as the film progressed I was not in the slightest disappointed when I discovered the films true content. Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2008 by mangaman
Must see
With Ghosts, Broomfield moves seamlessly from our leading documentary filmmaker to groundbreaking docu-dramatist. This is an uncomfortable film of British society's underbelly. Read more
Published on 12 Nov 2007 by Stephen Newton
ghosts : nick broomfield
i first saw this film on channel four and i thought it was absolutely fantastic.the music in the film was fantastic as well. Read more
Published on 10 Oct 2007 by Elvis fan
Ghosts
fantastic sad but true story of a tragic group of chinese that just wanted a better life
Published on 19 Sep 2007 by M. Lawrence
Brilliant...touching and descriptive
Having been brought up in chinese-close culture, I thought the director did a damn good job for presenting the chinese rural culture and their inspiration to go to 'west' to become... Read more
Published on 14 Sep 2007 by T. LIAO
Not that good really
I found this boring , I have seen a documentary on this terrible tragedy which had far more insight and impact than this film . Read more
Published on 17 Aug 2007 by Mark Wharton
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