Feature Film
Unsavory Elements…
Irgendwo in Asien lebt eine Schwesternschaft von Prostituierten in einem abgelegenen Bordell, das regelmäßig von drei aufdringlichen Expats besucht wird.
Nach einem tödlichen Unfall müssen die jungen Frauen unter der Führung ihrer mütterlichen Madame entscheiden, wie sie ihr Zuhause und ihre Existenz vor diesen Eindringlingen schützen können
Tom Carter
An inveterate vagrant who flirts with pictures and words, Tom Carter spent 2 straight years backpacking a groundbreaking 35,000 miles across all 33 Chinese provinces, and was named „one of China’s foremost explorers“ by The World of Chinese magazine. His first book „CHINA: Portrait of a People“ (2008, Blacksmith Books, Hong Kong) has been hailed as the most comprehensive book of photography on modern China ever published by a single author. He is also the editor of „Unsavory Elements“ (2013, Earnshaw Books, Shanghai), an anthology about foreign expats in China. Most recently, he penned the illustrated biography „An American Bum in China“ (2019, Camphor Press, Taiwan). In 2024, at age 50, Carter entered pre-production to write and direct his first feature film – an 8-year-in-the-making passion project informed by his observations of counterculture and vice in Asia, and inspired by his lifelong love of horror cinema. Tom Carter was born and raised in the City of San Francisco, graduated with a degree in Political Science from the American University in Washington, D.C., and has called China home since 2004.
Director Statement
The very first time I met producer George Rush (‚Sorry to Bother You‘; ‚Give Me Liberty‘; ‚Marcel the Shell with Shoes On‘; ‚Fremont‘; ‚Sasquatch Sunset‘), he implored me not to make this movie.
„Critics are going to hate you for it, and then they are going to cancel your filmmaking career even before it begins,“ George said with the calm certainty of someone who has been producing independent films for decades and has witnessed all manner of controversy.
George’s reasoning was that America as well as the rest of the world does not need yet another reminder of all the ugliness – the racism and misogyny and class divide – that pervades our sociopolitical landscape.
„And that’s exactly why I’m going to make it anyway,“ I countered, perhaps a bit too hotly for a 50-year-old first-time filmmaker who needed all the good advice he could get. „Because I believe the only way we’ll hopefully ever solve these social ills is to trigger a public discussion about them, and that’s the whole point of this. It’s not about me!“
That was a half-truth. ‚Unsavory Elements‘ is in fact about me; it is based on my experiences living and working around Asia for 15 years as an expatriate English teacher – notably, being held hostage by a stable of sex workers. Yeah, that really happened, and it inspired me to write a whole movie around it, albeit as a fictionalized horror flick.
Retaining the absurd-realism of those true events whilst also weaving in a satirical tragicomedy whereby each character firmly believes that he or she is not in the wrong, this story is intended as a brutally honest commentary addressing how West and East each perceive the other, often with othering, heightened suspicion and unfounded villainy.
I call this Elevated Exploitation: using grindhouse tropes of aberrant sexuality, graphic violence and contentious language as a sort of purposely-provocative medium to make people more aware of what is going on in our world.
Because beneath the blood ’n breasts of ‚Unsavory Elements‘ is timely messaging that hopefully will compel international audiences to engage in uncomfortable but necessary cross-cultural debates about xenophobia, immigration and the differences that continue to keep our hemispheres divided.
Using the single-location setting of an Asian brothel to parallel the world stage, my racially diverse cast – with each character serving as a different socioethnic metaphor – is integral to this heuristic effort, as they personify our planet’s dynamic populous and how we handle (usually poorly) conflict and culture clashes.
Strong ladies as our leads are essential to ‚Unsavory Elements‘ „women hold up half the sky“ female-empowerment subtext…however subversive an idea that may be amongst those who continue to strip away the rights of woman not only in developing nations but right here right now in the USA.
As a child of the 1970’s raised on 80’s horror, I’m very proud to say that our special effects are all practical (good ol‘ fashioned silicon, latex and corn syrup). For our score, each element was performed live with traditional Asian instrumentation (erhu, pipa, guzheng, tanggu). And 100% of our 18-person cast are of either Asian, African or Hispanic lineage, qualifying our Moderate Low Budget project for SAG’s Diversity-in-Casting Incentive; as a person of color myself, this was especially important to me.
In the end, George Rush not only came around to understanding what I am trying to achieve with this 8-year-in-the-making passion project, he executive-produced it. And the result of that unexpected collaboration is what you will hopefully accept into your festival in spite of the outrage I’ve been forewarned it will cause.
But if you’re okay with controversy and walkouts, then I’m okay with it too. And even if I am hated for this film, and if I never make another movie again because of it, it will still have been worth it.
Thank you for your consideration.
Tom Carter
Writer & Director of ‚Unsavory Elements‘
Cast & Crew
Director – Tom Carter
Writer – Tom Carter
Producer – Jeffrey Allard
(The Texas Chainsaw Massacre; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning)
Producer – George Rush
(The Last Showgirl; Sorry to Bother You; Give Me Liberty; Marcel the Shell with Shoes On; Fremont; Sasquatch Sunset)
Producer – Chris Martin
(Fremont; Sorry to Bother You)
Cinematography – Mike Epple
(Giants Rising; Saving Planet Earth: Fixing a Hole)
Editor – Andrew Drazek
(Black Summer; Sick; Nocturne; Lost on a Mountain in Maine; Z Nation)
Sound – Matt Coby
(Extraction; Magic Mike; Ocean’s Eleven; Traffic)
Key Cast
Bai Ling as “Ayi”
(The Crow; Dumplings; Red Corner)
Lawrence Kao as “Tommy”
(Ba; Wu Assassins; The Purge)
Shavvon Lin as “Nini”
(Truth or Dare; Hanging Dead; Apart, Together)
Ezekiel Ajeigbe as “Dimeji”
(The Hype; The Grove; The Bad Guys)
Lulu Chu as “Jiejie”
(Feed Me; Parasited; Infection)
Marval Rex as “Arthur”
(House of Abraham; The Book of Queer; Assigned Female at Birth)
Jim Lau as “Policeman”
(Big Trouble in Little China; Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan; Everybody Hates Chris)
Carrie Fei as “Mimi”
Ella Yam as “Jiajia”