Mongrel

Anchored by a lived-in performance from Wanlop Rungkumjad as a bedraggled migrant caregiver striving to maintain his humanity despite being exploited by his employer, this is a deeply sobering expansion of Chiang’s thematic focus.

It’s a sombre, sober movie but made with impressive artistry.

Rooting his drama in the specifics of rural Taiwan and the Southeast Asian diaspora that make their way there, Chiang’s tough but affecting film taps into tragically universal notions of feeling invisible or ineffectual in one’s day-to-day survival. These concepts are most certainly not lost in translation.