Following on from the impressive Woman on Fire Looks for Water,for his next film Malaysian filmmaker Woo Ming Jin takes on the insufferable circumstances of nineteen-year-old Ping Ping. For Woo, economic factors are often decisive. Whereas in his last film a major role was set aside for love, in The Tiger Factory – filmed in a documentary style – such emotions are completely absent. Under the watchful gaze of her aunt Tien, Ping Ping works herself into the ground with several simultaneous jobs, in order to pay human traffickers to take her to Japan. Another of her ways to make some money is to become pregnant as a surrogate mother. But immediately following the birth, she is told that the baby is dead. Nevertheless, Ping Ping wants to escape her miserable existence at any price. She asks her aunt, who runs an illegal trade in babies, to arrange for her to become pregnant again.