Indie Film ‘Her Locket’: Paving New Ways for Chinoy Representation

When you grow up part of a diaspora, wherever you are, whoever you are, you are almost certainly constantly on the lookout for people like yourself, whether consciously or not. It is human nature to yearn for recognition and a sense of belongingness in a place you have always called home, but wherein the state of your identity has always been and may always be a persisting question. 

There is a reason we search for representation in various forms of media. In books, movies, and even in modern-day influencers, we keep our ears perked and our eyes peeled for the unique sounds of a familiar language or the comforting sight of similar facial features. Even in a country such as the Philippines, where Chinoys have been fully integrated into the greater Filipino society and where we are every much as Filipino as the next person, it seems we have yet to see enough of ourselves on the big screens. 

It’s not that I, a Chinoy girl in her early twenties, have been going around scrounging for crumbs of representation, but the moment Her Locket started playing on screen, the voice in my head went, “Aha! I’ve found you”! 

Her Locket is a semi-autobiographical Chinese-Filipino indie film produced by Dr. Rebecca Chuaunsu that premiered for the first time in the Philippines this year after joining and winning awards in multiple acclaimed international film festivals since finishing its production. Set alternating between the current times and the eighties, we mainly follow Jewel Ouyang (played by Dr. Chuaunsu herself), a retired actress suffering from dementia after she had lost everything she had in her youth. 

Accompanied by her fiery young caretaker named Teresa (played by Elora Espano) and her lawyer son, Kyle (played by Boo Gabunada), the current Jewel starts to recall events from her past after finding an old locket with a photo of her and her estranged older brother Magnus as children (child Jewel and Magnus as played by Zoey Villamanca and Jian Repolles) and her parents (played by Norman Ong and Nellie Ang See). 

The return of her repressed memories eventually help her in finally being able to pursue a longstanding lawsuit against her brother as she has always believed that he had forged their father’s will into disowning her in his death. 

First and foremost, Her Locket is a heartbroken love letter to its own characters. Like many indie films of its kind, this one has tried and succeeded in allowing the film to wrap itself around the characters within it rather than the other way around. 

The two main characters, Jewel and Teresa, serve as the driving force of it all. While the trope of “opposites attract” is one that we often see, the relationship between Jewel and Teresa is a separate entity in itself. Two women, who could not be more different from each other, bond together in such a way that would not have been possible if they hadn’t been who they were. 

While Jewel was a melancholic old woman who had come from a wealthy– but broken– Chinese-Filipino family, the morally-gray Teresa stands on the opposite end of the spectrum as she struggles alone to make ends meet while nursing a strained toxic relationship with her father and a serious want to fit into unrealistic beauty standards. Despite everything– or perhaps because of everything– Jewel and Teresa were beautifully, horribly, terrifyingly… real. 

There is nothing more of an authentic female experience than two women who have lived through trauma after trauma, who have nowhere to bring out their rage, and who have learned to choke down one hard stone after another. And above that, the film depicts a truth that we need to acknowledge more of, which is that the female experience is one that transcends all cultures and contexts.

Her Locket also depicts the struggles in a traditionally conservative Chinese-Filipino household, but rather than just fully portraying Jewel and Magnus’ parents as evil for all that they had done, the writers had done an incredible job of showing that it isn’t all black and white. Chinoy families, like in all cultures, are not without its complexities. 

The masterful portrayal of childhood trauma manifesting into Jewel and Magnus’ unhealthy sibling rivalry in their young adult years (with teen Jewel and Magnus being played by Sophie Ng and Benedict Cua), to its inevitable spillage into their older years deserves an applause. Needless to say, as much as the film is a letter to its characters, it is also a study on the anatomy of Chinoy families, one that tears away the layers piece by piece, and leaves the wounds out to dry.

After all that said, there is still more yet to gain from the film. The most impressive thing about this film was its dedication to telling the story in the only way it should be, in the language that has kept the Chinoys together for hundreds of years– lannang-ue. In this current age of convenience, the courage it took to tell a story knowing that half of the audience would have to take extra effort to understand is no small feat. 

That notion of “Oh, you want to understand us? Then listen to us speak” is an unbeatable feeling to receive from a film. I grew up seeing people like me in Philippine media, but to hear my language in all its hybridity and imperfect glory telling such an important story made me feel so much prouder of my mother-tongue. Even for those who may not know the language will come to appreciate it while watching as they witness it as part of an artform, not something separate from it. 

In all my years of seeing stories that claim themselves to be Chinoy, I am strangely proud and baffled to find that the one film that has felt more authentically Chinese-Filipino than all others is an indie film full of actors of varying acting backgrounds, but I hold steadfast to my belief that if you find the right role for the right people, the effect will be infinitely better than just getting big names for the familiarity. 

The thing about Her Locket is that it is, in its essence, a story created by the Chinoys for the Chinoys– a sort of tribute, if you will. From the characters to the set design, from the dialog to the plot, every single detail doesn’t seem to have been crafted after just study and research, rather, they were crafted by those who know the Chinoy community by heart. In this film, in fact, there was no room for stereotyping, and what a refreshing breath of air that is! 

Perhaps, instead of hoping that Her Locket remains to be the only one of its kind, it is better to hope that its premiere in the Philippines and recognition in the international stage strikes a flame in the hearts of all Chinoy creatives. Tell your stories, use your language, and maybe someday you’ll find yourself being the representation to others that you once needed for yourself. Let Her Locket be the first of its kind.