Ba

The shift away from single, socially unencumbered heroes that we’ve seen in film in recent years has allowed a number of new ideas to emerge in old stories, and now that it has evolved a step further, beyond just switching in equivalent women, it’s getting more interesting still. Ba is, at its simplest, the story of a man who gets drawn into a high stakes scam which he’s desperate to escape. It has a supernatural element, but what makes it interesting is that hero Daniel (Lawrence Kao) goes through it all whilst trying to cope as a single parent to a nine-year-old girl.

“Ba, are we poor?” Colette (Kai Cech) asks after their accommodation falls through and her takes her on ‘a little car camping adventure’. That is, to an extent, a comparative term, but they’re certainly low on funds. It hasn’t been easy in the years since her mother left. He’s tried to be there for her all the time, promising that he’ll never leave, but he also has to make a living. Then, as they settle in for the night in a car park, the car beside them drives away, leaving a bag on the ground. Investigating, he finds money inside – not so much that they’ll be comfortable for the rest of their days, but enough to get them out of their current predicament. He also finds a card which reads ‘Upon acquisition of this payment you agree to the eternal profession.’

Flash forward six months. Daniel is working as part of a team of grim reapers, charged with finishing off the elderly, ailing and generally unfortunate with a touch and directing them authoritatively through a portal although he has no idea where it leads. He looks like a skull-faced monster, so has to keep himself covered up at all times, variously putting it down to infection or allergies. As every living creature he touches dies, he cannot hug his daughter. The only way out of his contract is to pay back, in honest money, 11 times what he received, so he also has a cleaning job, often struggling to get between the two. Colette lives a miserable existence, alone in their small apartment, talking to her invisible friends, warned to stay out of sight lest she come to the attention of child services.

It’s not a particularly sophisticated parable, but it doesn’t need to be. The central performances are strong and the bond between father and daughter feels real even when other elements do not. There’s enough going on around the periphery of Daniel’s primary employment for us to feel that when Colette curls up in bed at night with only a plush sheep for company, asking it to protect her, she could be in real danger. There is also the ongoing risk that she could have a fatal accident with her father, or that she could discover his occupation and, in the process, destroy their relationship.

Writer/director Benjamin Wong has invested a great deal of time and effort in constructing flashback montages of father and daughter together, and they work very well, avoiding excess sentiment but focused on building character and adding weight to the backstory. You won’t need to be a parent yourself to root for them. Furthermore, these aspects of the film emphasise that all they want out of life is the simple existence that most people enjoy, with work and school and intermittent afternoons in the park. Daniel may have made a mistake, but the temptation he felt is easy to understand, and the real world parallels to his situation are the source of a deeper horror.

Though Ba doesn’t evolve much beyond its initial concept, it’s a competent first feature with enough quality work to mark out Wong as one to watch.

Reviewed on: 31 May 2025