This story is about a group of people connected by a boy who was abandoned by his illegal immigrant father

The titular tourist market provides an atmospheric backdrop for this engaging if unrealistic story

2.5/5 stars

Set around the titular tourist attraction in Mong Kok, Ladies Market is a modest drama about several grass roots characters looking for that elusive sense of connection their respective family has failed to provide. The film plays more like an urban fable narrated from a child’s perspective than the gritty thriller that its subject matters, occasional use of adult language, and copious amount of chase scenes otherwise hint at.

The protagonist is the young boy Tung (Arrommy Leung), whose dreams of watching fireflies in the Hong Kong night sky bookend the film, and whose actions bring every major character into the story. Dubbed “Lying Tung” for his mischievous ways, he is in fact an illegal immigrant who was abandoned by his birth father years ago, only to be taken in by the benevolent but harsh Shan Lao (Liu Kai-chi) – though the film doesn’t explain how.

Shan forces the undocumented boy to live a life of deceit by asking him to pretend to go to school every morning and do his non-existent homework at their street store in the afternoons, while never allowing him to talk to the police or venture outside the neighbourhood. Tung’s wish to have a proper family then partly comes true when he finds a kidnapped little girl, Yan (Ma Suet-ching), in Shan’s storeroom and the two quickly form a bond.