Shanghai Buyers Get First Taste of ‘Coolie,’ Arvin Chen’s Cuba-Set Chinese Diaspora Series
Chinese industry executives will get a first taste of “Coolie,” a big-budget historical miniseries that focuses on the enslaved Chinese workers in Cuba in the 1860s.
MM2 Entertainment is handling China rights to the production on behalf of I.E. Entertainment. The Suharjono sisters’ I.E. Entertainment is representing rights in the rest of the world.
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Following a shoot in the Dominican Republic and Panama which wrapped in April, preliminary footage will be screened for buyers on Monday at a special event in Shanghai. Delivery of the completed series is not expected until late 2024 or early 2025.
Produced through Meileen Choo’s Cathay Film Company and directed by Arvin Chen (“Love in Taipei,” “Mama Boy”), the show stars Hong Kong actor Louise Wong (“A Guilty Conscience,” “Anita”) in the lead role as a young woman who departs from southern China to marry a political exile working on a sugarcane plantation in Cuba. The narrative sees her join forces with servants and African slaves seeking freedom. But the plantation owner’s spurned wife and her ex-lover conspire against them, triggering a series of scheming and retaliatory moves that leave Cuba’s fate in the balance.
“I created the story of ‘Coolie’ 30 years ago. It tells the story of our ancestors, the overseas Chinese. Few people today recognize the contributions made by overseas Chinese to so many countries in the world,” said Singapore-based Choo. “In the narrative foreground is the story of a brave Chinese girl who goes to Cuba to marry a coolie and repay her family’s debt.”
“Despite being such a meaningful topic, screen stories about the Chinese diaspora have been rare in recent years. Many coolies suffered heavily in order to create success and wealth for the world,” said actor Nina Paw, who portrays the key role of the young Chinese woman’s grandmother – she is both a financial burden and a source of wisdom.
In the mid-1800s, when the African slave trade was outlawed throughout the Americas, plantation owners in Cuba instead began trafficking indentured servants from China and other parts of Asia. These, so-called coolies were often treated as slaves, but some integrated into Cuban society and joined the country’s fight for independence from Spain. They provided a low-cost workforce for farms, restaurants, factories and were instrumental in setting up Chinatowns across the world.
The 2024 edition of the Shanghai International Film Festival runs June 14-23. The STVF runs June 24-28.
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