paul2001sw-1 The dreadful plight of illegal immigrants to the U.K. has been highlighted in a number of films, including Michael Winterbottom's 'In This World' and Channel 4's miniseries 'Sex Traffic'. While Nick Broomfield was motivated by the tragedy of the deaths of Chinese cockle-pickers in Morecombe Bay to abandon his normal style (of self-led investigative documentary) to film a dramatic reconstruction of their story. He handles the transition in styles well, and his film is realistic, harrowing and marked by striking photography of Britain's ugly-beautiful underbelly. Particularly good is the portrayal of the gang-master, a villain, yet also a victim at the same time. If there's a criticism its that, judged purely as drama, the story is almost too harrowing, with no hope of redemption at the end. But of course, the events depicted actually happened and, with the exception of the final chapter, continue to happen: this is an important film, and one that asks awkward questions for those of us rich off the backs of migrant labour.

davideo-2 STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning When 23 illegal Chinese cockle pickers drowned on the shores of Morcombe Bay in 2004, it exposed a dark, organized criminal underworld that most of us are probably vaguely aware of but blissfully turn a blind eye to. A secret, controlled network between organized gangs here and in places like China. This film follows the story of real life illegal Ai Qin, who travels to Britain from China in a sealed box in the back of a lorry in order to provide a better life for her son. But when she arrives in the UK, the only thing she finds waiting is domineering slave masters, disgusting living conditions and awful jobs with low pay. It all carries on with no solution until the night of the ill-fated MB disaster, which she was one of the few lucky enough to survive.Nick Broomfield, of Kurt and Courtney fame, has gone to pain-staking lengths to dramatize an imagined drama of what likely happened on the night of the Morcambe Bay cockle-picking disaster, staging a painfully authentic and believable tale that pulls no punches and tells it exactly like it is. All the cast, headed by real life immigrant Qin, pull off honest and earthly performances in a depressing and hopeless tale with some surprising little dashes of humour here and there that perk things up a bit. The only bum note is the unfairly sympathetic tone Broomfield chooses to accompany his film, tugging at our heart strings with the information of the immigrants spending six months on their journey to the UK mostly concealed in boxes, how most of them will never see their families again, how the British government still refuses to help the families back in China and how awful it all is. Poverty must be an awful thing, but these people did come over to our country unlawfully, taking jobs with forged documents that belonged to unemployed British people, and must have had some idea of the risks involved. To try and imply that our government should help when they were offered no protection or right to work here in the first place does seem a bit over the top to me. It is a very tragic tale all round, though, and one Broomfield, and his cast made up of other illegal immigrants (performance or re-enactment?) have brought to life quite powerfully. ****

Melissa Rand The title of Nick Broomfield's new film is deliberately ambiguous; ghosts being the disparaging term the Chinese use to describe white westerners and (possibly) a reference to the invisibility of poorly paid, unprotected non-British workers who work in slave conditions in the food industry.Three years ago such workers made the news, briefly, when 23 illegal Chinese immigrants drowned in Morecambe Bay while digging for cockles late one evening. As the waters rose around them, they rang their families to say goodbye, unaware they'd have been better off ringing 999.Their deaths inspired the notorious Broomfield to make a film in which he re-enacts the events leading up to the disaster. In this he is assisted by a cast of amateurs, many of whom are themselves illegal immigrants, and the film's star Ai Qi Lin, a non-professional, whom we follow through various low-skilled jobs in the food industry in a bid to pay back the $25,000 she borrowed from 'Snakeheads' to smuggle her into the country.There are times when she must wonder why she bothered, forced as she is to live in a two-bedroom house with 11 other Chinese immigrants, all of whom are sworn at and spat on by their neighbours. The landlord is no better: he overcharges them.And yet, for all that., despite the horrific ending, Ghosts isn't entirely bereft of hope. After all, if nothing else, its impact is such that it should force us all to question our own appetite for cheap food and embarrass supermarkets into altering the way their products are produced.

stevolution666 i saw this very recently and i implore everyone to see it.this film is brilliant in it's illustration of the lives of people forced to take desperate measures.the need for money being at the heart of the story, and money having no heart being part of the problem.one question it raises is responsibility, and you can't help but think governments across the world must change the economic and subsequent social situations that require these pyramids of suffering to occur.i particularly enjoyed the depiction of English racists, very life-like disgusting ignorant and often ugly.the greed greasing the wheels of exploitation on every level was thought provoking.in all an absolute masterpiece