User reviews

Its about a desperately jobseeking taiwanese girl in london england. she accepts in the end a job as a receptionist at a under cover massage parlour in a dull and grey neighbourhood in london , england. we are following the life of hope,dreams,struggle and tragedy and death, in the oldest worktrades of humanity told through the eyes of the receptionist. it is not a film about trafficking, rather a story about the house mom and her job seeking employees of women that just needs money to survive, not for drugs, just survival.

there is a small cast, and the actors do deliver, not awardingly, but believable. they really show the harshness of the sex trade, and the interconnection whithin a small group of women desperadoes of lost dreams.

its an informative movie of the shadow lives of a large city, its recommended by the grumpy old man

Great story to tell. I wish more work had been done with the dialogues. Some scenes are a bit caricatural or difficult to piece together. Why did Anna become so deluded? I like the analogy with the worms. I wish we could see what happened with Sasa.

A young college graduate in London takes a job as a receptionist in an illegal massage parlor where she and her fellow Taiwanese immigrants experience real existential hardship.

I love love love this movie. I feel like I had a life affirming, if not life changing, experience watching this. Everything about this film works. Especially the acting and the story. Some of the scenes are brutal. It would definitely get an R rating in the US, but it's not exploitative one bit. It's the furthest thing from a dumb, slasher horror film or a gross out high school comedy.

It's like a Chekov story or an Ibsen play. It's for fans of intelligent, tight, suspenseful, compassionate, slow burning crime dramas. It's definitely one I will be raving about to my friends. If I could give it higher than my absolute highest recommendation, I would. Please, please watch this film. It's really amazing.

Tina, a young Taiwanese woman, searches for work in a London blighted by economic insecurity. Frustrated in her pursuit of a 'respectable' job, separated from her family and living in overpriced accommodation with her equally luckless boyfriend, she grudgingly takes a role as a receptionist at a massage parlour located in a rented house on a quiet suburban street. Here she becomes part of a new family, a trio of Asian women presided over by a matriarchal madam, visited by a succession of men seeking lonely comfort, money or dominance. An assured and challenging debut, the film gives an outsiders perspective of London, ironically given the radical interiority of the brothel in which most of it is set - a hidden world, where the indentured women must never let the customers see each other and have to insulate the house so that the musky reek of sex, commerce and alienation doesn't seep out to the neighbours.

This is that rare lower budgeted film which makes a genuine virtue of its limitations, creating a mise en scene that is at once squalid and strangely comforting. It uses subtle shifts in tonality to explore the complexities of its subject. Powerful drama and bleak comedy mingle with discomforting body-horror, as the prim and well-composed Tina confronts the unhygienic, squalid world of the brothel, eating her dinner at a table with women who have come straight from their last physical assignation, taking us as the audience through revulsion to understanding and sympathy. Director Jenny Lu unflinchingly depicts the subjugation and degradation inherent to prostitution whilst at the same time highlighting the oddly familial and beguilingly tender camaraderie that develops between the women in the lulls between rings on the doorbell. She also takes care to locate the brothel in a wider social context, with news of soaring unemployment and house prices appearing in news clips like reports of zombie outbreaks. Tina's boyfriend, her careers advice officer - even the thuggish toy boy of the madam - are all under economic duress, each confronting their own instability. The Receptionist depicts an irreversible de-eroticization of sex, it's reduction to a melancholy and brutal transaction by economic hardship and need. This film dexterously avoids exploitation while rigorously exploring it as a theme.

For a first time feature-film director, Jenny Lu exhibits a bracing focus and confidence, taking risks and utilizing the full range of filmic technique without ever over-stylizing or losing sight of her characters. She confidently explores the ambiguities and paradoxes of her subject, oscillating between a cool detachment and a deeply human empathy. When the film finally expands outwards, away from London, it ascends to an emotionally powerful conclusion without lapsing into sentimentality. Lu elicits brave performances from her largely female cast, who are uniformly excellent, with a special mention going to Shiang-chyi Chen as the tragic, trapped yet still defiant SaSa.

The Receptionist is a must see for anyone who still believes in the power and possibilities of film, a sobering and cliché-free portrayal of the realities and surreality of the sex trade and the debut of a talented, focused and unique directorial talent. Highly recommended.

The film provides an in depth look into the hidden lives of foreigners doing illicit work to survive and provide for their families. And all the drama that comes about because of that.

In this genre there are very few movies on the topic. This one really manages to hit the ball out the park.

Their are multiple extraordinary scenes that show what these people go through and makes one want to tear up.

I am sure this was probably quite a low budget film but the cinematography was well done.

The acting was good with believable characters. The subtitles were done well as a majority of the conversations are not in English. Some of the plot points could have had more backstory.

What a debut from Jenny Lu she delivered a hard hitting emotionally intense raw film. I have to say I had teary eyes through the film the characters where all brilliant as well. I look forward to her future work.