Teen Girl Comes of Age in Unlikely Place in ‘Bugis’

Near the beginning of Hong Kong filmmaker Yonfan’s endearing “Bugis Street,” its naive 16-year-old heroine Lian (“Heaven and Earth’s” Hiep Thi Le), newly arrived from Malacca, takes a job at a picturesque Singapore Hotel.

Writing to a friend back home, she reports breathlessly that “it’s just like ‘The World of Suzy Wong.’ ” Almost but not quite, for Lian has not yet discovered that the glitzy glamour girls of the wonderfully named Sin Sin Hotel on notorious Bugis Street are in fact men, with a far greater percentage of them transvestites than transsexuals. The time is the ‘60s.

Like countless drag queens everywhere, the denizens of Bugis Street turn to prostitution in order to survive while dreaming of true love. Some, like Lola (Ernest), are long-term residents of the Sin Sin, others rent by the hour, arriving arm-in-arm with their johns, many of them American and European servicemen on leave from the Vietnam War.

The Sin Sin, run by a plump, kind woman with a pudgy little son, may be a hot-sheet hotel, but it is well-maintained, with Lian quickly adapting to her job cheerfully as an all-purpose servant. With its courtyard, lush foliage and charming colonial architecture the hotel might pass for one in New Orleans; indeed the delicate fretwork of its transoms recall the cast-iron filigree of French Quarter balconies.

In adapting a story by his producer Katy Yew, Yonfan suggests that such an establishment might not be such a bad place for a young girl to come of age after all. Lola, who keeps a handsome, muscular, no-good lover (Michael Lam), and the other working girls can be shrill and flighty, but by and large they are, underneath the false eyelashes and feathers, tough cookies surviving in a hostile world despite their vulnerability.

They are kind and loving to Lian, and they have lots to teach her about men and women, life and love. Lian’s special mentor is Drago (Greg-O), back on a visit from Paris to visit his dying mother. Drago is an ultra-chic, ultra-affected cosmetics salesperson, but beneath all the exaggerated gestures and attire, a devoted son and a worldly mentor to Lian.

Yonfan has an amazing control of tone. He doesn’t hesitate to exploit the muscular bodies of the hunky men who attract the Bugis Street ladies, yet there is an admirable detachment in his compassion. “Bugis Street” can be very steamy, not to mention outrageously over the top, yet Yonfan can step back and frame his highly urban, decidedly lurid and sentimental tale with beautiful, leafy, rain-drenched images.

There’s more to “Bugis Street” than mere sensationalism, just as there’s more to the real-life transvestites and transsexuals who populate this film than their makeup and sequins. “Bugis Street” is alternately funny and gritty and ultimately wise and touching.

Don’t go looking for Bugis Street, however, when visiting Singapore, for it has been leveled, just as New Orleans’ long-abandoned Basin Street brothels were nearly 50 years ago. (The film was shot in a nearby area.) Civic reformers and urban developers everywhere seem to have little appreciation for the beguiling architecture of palaces of pleasure.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: some blunt, though not hard-core, sex, some nudity and decidedly adult themes and situations.

‘Bugis Street’

Lian: Hiep Thi Le

Drago: Greg-O

Lola: Ernest

Meng: Michael Lam

Maggie: Maggie Lye

Sailor: David Knight

A Margin Films presentation. Writer-director Yonfan. Based on a story by producer Katy Yew. Cinematographer Jacky Tang. Editor Kam Ma. Music Chris Babida. Art director Ma Man Bing. In English and Mandarin, with Chinese and English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

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* Exclusively at Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869, and the Port, 2905 E. Coast Highway, Corona del Mar, (714) 673-6260.