Phua Chu Kang: The Movie
My rating:




Has Phua Chu Kang ever been good? Damned if I know. I do know that the latest episodes of the 13-year-old Singaporean sitcom have been mind-bogglingly awful. Or at least what little I've seen of them, because I've never been able to sit through an entire episode. The show is stupid. To call it broad comedy would be an insult to the entire genre of broad comedy, and it's laughable to think of Singaporeans acting all high and mighty and oh-so-much-more sophisticated than us "ulu" Malaysians when this is their greatest contribution to pop culture. (Ahem. TMBF is no saint; I am not above the friendly rivalry barely-restrained animosity we share with our southern neighbours.)

It is with this entirely fair and balanced viewpoint that I went into Phua Chu Kang: The Movie, and thus came out declaring that it sucks.

Phua Chu Kang (Gurmit Singh) greets his Ah Ma (Neo Swee Ling) who has come to KL to visit her son - but instead, she chooses to stay at the Seow Soon old folks home, spending time with a mysterious resident there. Curious as to what she's up to, Chu Kang bids for a renovation contract with Seow Soon's director Lim Lau Pek (Henry Thia), and enters a heated competition for a much more lucrative contract against his arch-rival Frankie Foo (Lim Kay Siu). Meanwhile, Chu Kang's wife Rosie (Irene Ang) discovers many unsavoury things about Lim; Chu Kang's dimwitted worker King Kong (Charlie Tan) falls for Lim's assistant Angel (Angie Seow); and Ah Ma drops a bombshell on her son - the mysterious old man is his long-believed-dead grandfather (Gurmit Singh).

Well, it's not as bad as I thought - at least not as bad as k0k bL0k's review made it out to be. This is largely because it pretty much does what a theatrical film adaptation of a TV series is supposed to do. It features actors playing well-established roles with the ease and comfort of long experience, plus a few fan-favourite minor characters. The plot has the feel of a story that's large enough to warrant the silver screen; a larger canvas, higher stakes, and more narrative momentum. Director Boris Boo's camera is also a lot more dynamic and cinematic than the typical three-camera sitcom setup. It has everything a PCK fan could expect in a PCK movie, and enough of it to ensure they walk out happy.

But hell no I am not a PCK fan, nor do I wanna know any of 'em. 'Cos the movie is every bit as moronic, unfunny and annoying as the series. The subplot about Chu Kang forgetting his wedding anniversary is as fresh as The Honeymooners. The Nippon Paints product placement is so blatant and tacked-on, I'm surprised a Geoffrey Nicholson voiceover didn't come on. And Gurmit Singh's affectation for playing Chu Kang's grandfather and father in flashbacks makes it impossible to suspend disbelief in the former case - and in the latter, subjects us to cringe-inducing love scenes between Gurmit and Neo Swee Lin. Guys, you've been playing mother and son for 13 years, like, eww. The whole movie is incredibly juvenile; the ones laughing the loudest in my cinema were the kids, and I can only assume the adults I heard chuckling along were busy re-engaging with their inner childs.

And sweet Jinjang Jehosophat, the movie's colour grading. Skin looks green, lips look pink, and the eye-searing colours of Rosie's makeup and Frankie's shirts are even more garish and hideous. It's a very, very ugly movie, and I suspect Boo and the rest of the show's producers did it on purpose. Y'see, PCK started out as a spoof of Ah Bengs - their speech patterns, their fashion sense, and their taste in interior decor. But whatever humour they've been tapping from that vein has long since gone bone-dry, because they're now waaaay past poking fun at it and plunged headlong into reveling in it. Yes, they have become the very thing they once parodied. They're no longer spoofing Ah Beng-ness, they're rubbing the audience's faces in it. They have stared too long into the abyss, and now the abyss stares out of them and into us with every loving close-up of Chu Kang's mole.

Acting? There is none. These may be actors, but there is no acting to be found in this movie; all there is is shtick. Of course, most of the cast have been doing this shtick for the better part of 13 years, thus their ease and comfort that I mentioned earlier. Doesn't make their shtick any less stupid and annoying. What's sad is that you can actually see some glimmers of talent in Gurmit, Ang, Neo and Henry Thia, and I'm sure they've demonstrated it in other shows and films they've done. I wonder how they keep from feeling like they're debasing their craft doing crap like this - or have they just gone way past that and into simply enjoying their paychecks.

And yet I'm giving it 2 stars, having said earlier that it's not as bad as I thought. I am forced to arrive at this conclusion because, looking at the kind of movie I usually give 1-½ stars to, I am forced to admit that something like this would be a small improvement over the typical Malay movie. (At least it has a plot.) But now that I've brought it up, I have this to say to fans of this ridiculously inane TV-show-turned-movie: you don't watch local films? You couldn't be paid to go see 'em, wouldn't be caught dead watching 'em? You think they're stupid and unfunny and insulting to your intelligence? Phua Chu Kang: The Movie is the same. Thus it is quite appropriate that I label it under "Made in Malaysia". If you enjoyed it, you should catch Senario Asam Garam next.

NEXT REVIEW: Going the Distance
Expectations: this looks like it could be good