Local Produce

In the last couple of months, there have been a slew of releases of Singaporean films, which is nice. Add to that the commendable work done by Cine.Sg, and that's a lotta local films I've seen all year - probably more in a two-month period than the whole of the last two years combined. And since Cine.Sg is still ongoing, I hope there'll be more to come.


鐵男 (Unarmed Combat)
A man persuades his wife to sign up for an arm-wrestling competition, but begins to regret it when she becomes obsessed with it. Meanwhile, a beautiful stranger enters his life at his laundry shop. The story sounds interesting enough, doesn't it? And the writer-director is obviously heavily influenced by Stephen Chow's recent movies, where drama and slapstick can exist side by side. But this is a very tricky thing to do, because the last thing you want to do is to have an important dramatic scene and then undercut the mood with a silly joke. Hell, I'm not even a fan of Stephen Chow when he does that; I just don't think it works. Not to say that humor and drama can't co-exist in the same scene - it's just fucking hard to do it well.

So yeah, I had a problem with the general tone of the movie, so it really didn't do that much for me. The leads are game enough, but somehow the pacing doesn't ever get going, and coupled with my discomfort with the tone, made the whole thing seem longer and slower than it was.


愛情故事 (Love Story)
This is a real rarity in Singapore film for two reasons. One, you can't tell that it's shot in Singapore. And two, it's a mindfuck. The traditional narrative is eschewed for an exploration of the creative (writing) process, with scenes that relate more to the theme than to any actual plot. In fact, for probably that reason, it reminded me of a theatrical play that leaps across space, time and every other dimension. It also reminded me of Ingmar Bergman's work, which I suppose is a huge compliment to writer-director Kelvin Tong. Bears repeated viewing, if only for the reason that the first time you're likely to just go, "What the fuck?" (but in a good way).

The HD cinematography is gorgeous, with artfully composed shots that transform every location into a dreamscape and make them look nothing like what they normally are. In fact, there's only one single shot in the entire film that gives away the fact that it's shot in Singapore, something really difficult considering that I've lived here all my life and know lots of places by sight.

Other highlights include an unrecognizable Evelyn Tan as a librarian, and opening titles that come half an hour into the film. Performances are generally decent, except for Ericia Lee's horny policewoman role, and this was mainly due to her atrocious Mandarin.

It's an encouraging sign when an arthouse movie is made on a big budget, but sadly the money had to come from Hong Kong. So far all the Focus First Cuts movies have been disappointments (well, the single one I've seen made me want to throw up) but this is the first that's a hit in my book.


Talking Cock the Movie
A movie composed of little sketches, with the common threads being characters and jokes from the Talking Cock website. The humor is quintessentially Singaporean, i.e., anyone not local will probably be left scratching their heads. Probably the most noteworthy thing about the movie is the fact that the directors had absolutely no clue what they were doing when they made it, yet went ahead and did it anyway. Now that takes balls. As you can expect, the results are uneven at best. Sometimes it seems that they took every idea that came along and threw it at the wall to see if it would stick. Many jokes that would probably be hilarious on the page simply don't translate as well into a visual medium, and so while I got some good laughs out of it, some sequences were just too painful to watch. I loved the dirty old man song, even though his joke was unfunny and overdone.


City Sharks
I'm probably more than a little biased here, since I know the writer-director personally, but I think this is one of the most enjoyable local films I've seen. Of course, it's not the best (that would probably be one of the depressing arthouse flicks), but it's definitely the most Hollywood, in the sense that it uses the traditional formulas in screenplay construction, but uses them well. I've seen it before on crappy video CD, and I'll have to say a big screen really does wonders. For one thing, you could actually notice the cinematography.

It's a fun road movie, and the three leads have really good chemistry together. Sheikh Haikel's character tends to get annoying, which is unfortunate since he's supposed to be a lovable one. Filled with loads of cameos and funny one-liners, but also has heart as well, and Lim Kay Tong in a rare comedic turn. Of course he plays the straight man, but he does that well. Ultimately it's a popcorn movie, but when those are done well, they're to be commended too.


4:30
I saw Royston Tan's short film 15 (made in 2002) several years ago, and loved it immediately. Later it was made into a feature film, which I never got the chance to see. I've also seen a couple of his shorts, which were rather well-made, especially in comparison with most of the crap out there. But on the other hand, there's also been so much press about the guy that quite frankly, I was sick of reading about him. Is he overrated? Maybe. But that doesn't make his film bad. I believe in evaluating each film on its own merits, and for sure, 4:30 has plenty of them.

Singapore is a big city, and underneath the hustle and bustle of big cities is always one common emotion - solitude. This film explores that in the form of a boy left home alone and the Korean tenant in his flat. The cough mixture-chugging boy becomes obsessed with the man and slips into his room at 4:30 every morning to collect personal mementos. The story progresses slowly and deliberately, with emphasis on mood and feeling as opposed to plot developments and dialogue. It could've been overdone and pretentious, but it's to Tan's credit that everything feels natural and unforced, and I wasn't bored at all.

Much has been said about the boy's fine acting, but personally I think it wasn't that difficult a role. More of the mood and emotions are conveyed in the framing of shots, sound design and editing than in his actual performance, which is not to say that he wasn't effective. It's just that you don't need an amazing actor in his role, and he was more than competent for the part.

This is one of the more thoughtful local films around, and while I don't worship Royston Tan like a god (as opposed to the local media), I think it's definitely a feather in his cap and a credit to the local film scene.


Cine.Sg runs till November. Here's to more good local films.