BLUE SUN PALACE
a film by Constance Tsang
FEATURE PRESENTATION
MAY 28, 2025 • 9:00 PM
@ THE BUS STOP THEATRE
(2203 GOTTINGEN STREET, HALIFAX)
2024 / USA / 116 mins
In Mandarin, English, and Min Nan with English subtitles
In the Chinese enclave of Flushing, Queens in New York City, a trio of immigrant women run a massage parlour. Navigating uneven power dynamics with predatory clientele, trying to protect themselves from abusive customers, and scraping by on modest earnings, their days aren’t easy. But their sisterly bond brings them plentiful moments of shared joy, meals, and dreams—a glimpse of home, away from their homelands. One of the women, Didi, has a strange, tenuous relationship with a man named Cheung that oscillates somewhere between romance and companionship. When a violent tragedy strikes, the characters are set adrift within the stifling darkness of grief and find solace in unexpected new connections.
Constance Tsang’s debut feature is an intimate, bleak, yet compassionate portrait of the loneliness of displacement, brought to life with introspective performances by a skillful cast, including legendary Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-sheng. In gorgeous 16mm, we witness the space immigrants carve out for themselves and the comfort they find in one another. —Kelly Li
TRAILER
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Constance Tsang
Constance Tsang is a Chinese American filmmaker based in New York. She graduated from Columbia University with an MFA in Screenwriting and Directing. Her first feature film Blue Sun Palace (2024) premiered at Cannes Critics' Week 2024, and won the French Touch Prize of the Jury.