Dragon Boys features one of the most star-studded
casts ever assembled for a Canadian mini-series: Byron Mann, Steph Song,
Tzi Ma, Lawrence Chou and Eric Tsang star in this extraordinary human
drama.
Tommy Jiang (BYRON MANN ) is a tough, smart detective on the RCMP Asian
Gang Squad, a rising star whose career success stands in stark contrast
to strains and tensions in his personal life. When he’s seconded to
an elite Task Force in the midst of a community uproar over organized
crime, Tommy sees a chance to bring down senior gangsters (ERIC TSANG)
by turning one of them against the others. But there are wheels within
wheels, and Tommy is soon drawn into a high-stakes game of bluff and
double-bluff.
As tensions rise, Tommy must grapple with a master manipulator (LAWRENCE
CHOU) who’s pursuing a ruthless agenda – and with his own conflicted
sense of personal and cultural identity. Ultimately, Tommy risks losing
everything as he faces an irrevocable choice about who he is and how
far he is willing to go.
Henry Wah (TZI MA) emigrated from China 20 years ago, fell in love,
and worked doggedly to build a new life with his wife Mae (CHRISTINA
MA). They’ve finally succeeded in opening their own business, but in
the process Henry has grown distant from his son. Now 17, Jason (SIMON
WONG) is a vulnerable kid with a chip on his shoulder. The target of
racial bullying at school, Jason is helped out by a Chinese-Canadian
student with gang connections, and Henry realizes too late what his
son is being drawn into. When a robbery goes horrifically wrong, Jason
runs for his life, and Henry launches a desperate attempt to save him.
A factory worker in southern Cambodia, Chavy Pahn (STEPH SONG) dreamed
that she could parlay her good looks into a modeling career, and arranged
with a Snakehead for documents and a plane ticket to Vancouver. Arriving,
she discovers she’s trapped. With no friends, no passport and no way
to pay off a $30,000 debt, she is warehoused with 10 other girls in
a one-bedroom apartment and forced to work as a prostitute in a massage
parlour owned by the wife (JEAN YOON) of a senior gangster. Chavy sees
a chance for escape when she catches the eye of a much-feared gang enforcer
whose status could protect her. But it’s a desperate gamble, for Sorrows
(DARRYL QUON) is the most dangerous man she will ever meet.
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These stories weave through and around each other in this four-hour
mini-series that examines tensions and complexities within the multi-ethnic
fabric of contemporary Vancouver, Canada. While exploring themes relating
to the immigrant experience, social dislocation, generational conflict
within families, personal and cultural identity, Dragon Boys evokes
a rich tapestry of contemporary West Coast life. Dragon Boys is a unique
and important story about who we are and how we live, here and now.
Dragon Boys, a two-part, four-hour mini-series, will be broadcast on
CBC in January of 2007.