12-29-2022, 12:16 AM
A wealthy real estate agent meets a dwarf and hatches a plan to build a community just for dwarves. He designs it in a Disneylandish way in an area known for wild exotic butterflies and supports it as a tourist attraction in China. The rub is this isn’t fiction. It’s a documentary.
I’ve been following the Little People Kingdom and Butterfly Garden story for many years. It’s delicate because Asia, particularly PRC, is hard on dwarves, or any physical disability. There’s no place for them. The LPK provides a viable income and community support.
The documentary focuses on the dwarves with even handed interviews letting them tell their tragic stories. It follows some that leave to live in Beijing and some that go to Japan to work as costumed characters in an amusement park. Those stories are compelling, yet don’t quite take a side.
There’s interview with the founder who seems like every sleezy PRC petty tyrant I’ve met. There’s an interview with a normal sized tightrope walker who also lives at LPK that’s superfluous, except footage of a failed stunt he attempted walking blindfolded backwards up an inclined tightrope for a Guinness record. The fall is shocking. There’s a really awkward interview with some sort of normal sized female tour guide speaking broken English.
But it’s really about the dwarves. Some main characters emerge with fascinating stories. There’s a woman who wants to see the world and leaves for Beijing and Japan, then longs to return because her jobs there are even more demeaning. There’s a 50+ year old man raising his daughter who might be normal. There’s a kid who hopes to live out the rest of his life at LPK but he fears he might outgrow it.
The most intense parts are the performances. The LPK stage is dilapidated with a harsh bleating sound system playing gawdawful pop music. The performance range from dumb dances in fairy costumes, to bad breakdancing and crooning, to one of the most disturbing qigong demos I’ve ever seen (and coming from me, that says a lot, right?) A dwarf swallows a ball bearing then pushes it through his sinuses and digs it out with a long metal spike… out of his eye. Just watching him push the spike into his eye socket - in slo mo even - made me wince.
The performances are to a minuscule audience of maybe a half dozen in an auditorium that might hold a hundred or more. The whole vibe of LPK was surreal and uncomfortable.
The doc left me perplexed about my opinion of LPK and will probably give me nightmares - not of sinful dwarves, but of twisted fate.
Only recommended for cf (Ed too if he ever came around here anymore…)
Seen on kanopy
I’ve been following the Little People Kingdom and Butterfly Garden story for many years. It’s delicate because Asia, particularly PRC, is hard on dwarves, or any physical disability. There’s no place for them. The LPK provides a viable income and community support.
The documentary focuses on the dwarves with even handed interviews letting them tell their tragic stories. It follows some that leave to live in Beijing and some that go to Japan to work as costumed characters in an amusement park. Those stories are compelling, yet don’t quite take a side.
There’s interview with the founder who seems like every sleezy PRC petty tyrant I’ve met. There’s an interview with a normal sized tightrope walker who also lives at LPK that’s superfluous, except footage of a failed stunt he attempted walking blindfolded backwards up an inclined tightrope for a Guinness record. The fall is shocking. There’s a really awkward interview with some sort of normal sized female tour guide speaking broken English.
But it’s really about the dwarves. Some main characters emerge with fascinating stories. There’s a woman who wants to see the world and leaves for Beijing and Japan, then longs to return because her jobs there are even more demeaning. There’s a 50+ year old man raising his daughter who might be normal. There’s a kid who hopes to live out the rest of his life at LPK but he fears he might outgrow it.
The most intense parts are the performances. The LPK stage is dilapidated with a harsh bleating sound system playing gawdawful pop music. The performance range from dumb dances in fairy costumes, to bad breakdancing and crooning, to one of the most disturbing qigong demos I’ve ever seen (and coming from me, that says a lot, right?) A dwarf swallows a ball bearing then pushes it through his sinuses and digs it out with a long metal spike… out of his eye. Just watching him push the spike into his eye socket - in slo mo even - made me wince.
The performances are to a minuscule audience of maybe a half dozen in an auditorium that might hold a hundred or more. The whole vibe of LPK was surreal and uncomfortable.
The doc left me perplexed about my opinion of LPK and will probably give me nightmares - not of sinful dwarves, but of twisted fate.
Only recommended for cf (Ed too if he ever came around here anymore…)
Seen on kanopy
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
