The Illegal Immigrant | Blu-ray (Kani)
Shipping later this month from Kani is The Illegal Immigrant, a 1985 Shaw Brothers film from director Mabel Cheung (An Autumn’s Tale).
Mabel Cheung’s debut unfolds as the quintessential American story: that of the “illegal” immigrant, doing anything they must to survive in the so-called land of the free. After a raid on a Canal Street garment factory leaves Cheung (Ching Yong-Cho) targeted by immigration agents, the mainland refugee resorts to a sham marriage with a reluctant acquaintance named Cindy to access a green card.
An NYU graduation project miraculously funded by Shaw Brothers Studio, Mabel Cheung’s The Illegal Immigrant was entirely shot on location in New York’s Chinatown, in authentic gambling parlours and video stores, amidst real-life gangsters and undocumented immigrants cast as non-professional actors. From this results a remarkable encapsulation of a time and place that no longer exists; a comic tragedy that establishes, with unusual freedom, the foundations of what would become Mabel Cheung “immigration trilogy” a short few years later with the successes of An Autumn’s Tale and Eight Taels of Gold.
The film stars Ching Yong-Cho (An Autumn’s Tale), Wu Fu-Sheng (Boy Scout Bliss), Liao Chong-Yu and Peter Lee Gui-Yuen (The Candidats).
Features:
- Region A Blu-ray
- Interview with director Mabel Cheung (19mins, 2026)
- “Bringing Cindy and Chau to Life” (7mins, 2026)
- Selected Scenes Commentary with director Mabel Cheung (18min, 2026)
- Booklet with new writing by Chiarina Chen
- English, English SDH subtitles
Watch the Trailer:
