MUNKIE

After discovering a true crime podcast about Jennifer Pan, a Vietnamese-Canadian who staged a home invasion robbery to murder her parents in response to their severely abusive “tiger parenting”, I was immediately taken by this tragic story and like many, were conflicted by Jennifer’s vengeful intentions but could sympathise with why she felt she had no other option but to orchestrate this heinous crime in order to seek some form of happiness and control in her life. It’s such a rare event to hear of a misguided “golden child” wanting to commit parenticide, and this case lingered in my mind for many months. In fact, I became obsessed with it, scouring discussion threads and watching her police interrogation videos online.

Eventually, I wanted to explore Jennifer’s story within the crime genre for my Master of Arts thesis short film taking inspiration from it, and ultimately creating an anti-heroine protagonist which we have rarely seen from a Chinese New Zealand perspective.

This isn’t a film about family honour – this is about passion, impulsivity, narcissism and one’s right for free will. It’s also about a character who deserves to be just as complex, flawed and damaged as our male antiheroes. There is no moralising or judgements being made but rather this idea of helping our viewers understand an imperfect world. It is my desire to tell this compelling story cinematically and artistically, and I hope it finds its audience here locally and internationally.