Synopsis
‘Lost in Mandalay’ is the story of Fong, a young woman from humble origins who embraces chaos and stands up to tyranny to save her people from the machinations of greed and ignorance - a true Myanmarese heroine (like Aung San Suu Kyi)
Fong runs a broken-down old hotel with her mother, Jang, in a beautiful remote village high-up in the enigmatic misty mountains of northern Myanmar. The small village is a place that is untouched by modern civilisation. Although Fong loves her home and is profoundly connected to nature and her people, she longs to escape to a new life away from her scheming mother, who, still mourning the loss of her runaway son, treats Fong coldly and jealously. Fong must also contend with the misplaced affections of the brutal village leader, Phuban. Who wants her for his wife. Fong is stuck between the two tyrants, who force her to be complicit in their crimes of robbing and murdering passing traders.
The village is an exciting and lawless place where local people practice dark ritual magic at night in the jungle while local jade traders drink and fight over priceless rare jewels in the hotel bar. Fong struggles to find her place among all this madness, until one day she meets Rachel, the wife of a rich outsider visiting on business. Rachel gives Fong a glimpse of what life outside could be like, which stirs something deep inside the girl. What Fong doesn’t know is that Rachel’s husband, Seaw, is in fact her estranged brother and he is working on a secret deal to buy land from Phuban and surprise his mother and sister.
One night, shortly after meeting Rachel, Fong witnesses children being loaded into a truck to be sent into slavery. Her mind is blown and she is forced into the reality of a modern world that, like the other villagers, she has no experience of. She tries everything she can to escape the horror the village has become and eventually stows away to the city with a western adventurer, Jake, whom she has fallen in love with. Fong has high hopes of staying in the city and finding her brother, but when Jake betrays her and Phuban kidnaps her from the city, she ends up back to where she started, only now with the resolve to fight those who stand in her way.
The clock is ticking for Fong; if she and her mother can’t make enough to pay-off Phuban by her 21st birthday, he will be entitled to marry her. But it’s not just the threat of marrying a man she despises; it’s quickly becoming clear that Phuban has big plans transform the village and and take away all that is ancient and sacred and can never be replaced.
Will Fong find out about her brother in time to do something about the destruction of her people? Or will chaos and misunderstanding damn them all to hell?