Reunion dinner is important, FYI

Homecoming
My rating:




I was somewhat begrudging about catching this movie, and I don't really have a good reason why. Maybe I'm just biased against Singaporeans Singaporean films; maybe because this one featured Jack Neo in drag, which is not a thing I'm dying to watch. Or maybe because I am firmly in the corner of Chiu Keng Guan and his locally-produced CNY movie, even if it wasn't as good as I hoped. But Homecoming has Aniu and Afdlin Shauki and a couple other Malaysian-born (if Singapore-based) actors, and even a Malaysian director - and thus, I could no longer dismiss it as a movie not under TMBF's purview. But I fully admit I went in biased, and didn't expect it to be better than Great Day.

Well... okay, it is. In certain aspects. But overall, not by much. Yeah yeah, colour me biased.

It is the eve of the Lunar New Year, and every Chinese is preparing for the traditional family reunion dinner. Aunty Karen (Jack Neo) and her son Ah Meng (Aniu) are making the journey from Singapore to KL, where Karen hopes to matchmake her less-than-enthusiastic son with a distant relative. Renowned Western-trained chef Daniel Koh (Mark Lee) is due to prepare a sumptuous dinner for a minister and his family, but his arrogance rubs everyone the wrong way, including his restaurant manager Fei Fei (Jacelyn Tay). Daniel has no time for his daughter Mindy (Koe Yeet), who decides to go to KL on her own to visit her divorced mother - and finds herself traveling with Karen and Ah Meng, who in turn end up reluctantly ferried by taxi driver Zool (Afdlin Shauki). Meanwhile, newlyweds Boon (Huang Wen Hong) and Jamie (Rebecca Lim) are home for the holidays, but struggle with having to tell Boon's parents that they intend to spend the New Year on a holiday in Bali.

Here's the good part: the Karen-Ah Meng segment is wonderful. It has all the movie's funniest scenes, and director Lee Thean-Jeen helms them with perfect comic timing. (In this case, comic timing = throwing a new joke at the audience while they're still laughing at the previous one, which works beautifully.) Ah Meng gets all the snarkiest lines, and his banter with his mother is loads of fun. It also has Afdlin Shauki, who is as effortless as ever in being funny and likable; one of the great things about this CNY Chinese-language movie is how generous with time and affection it is to a Malay character. Not even Great Day or Woohoo! is as 1Malaysia as this (and yes, I am quite loath to say this of a Singaporean co-production). And the storyline is very effectively heartwarming, ending with every character being awesome to each other.

Unfortunately, that's just one-third of the movie. The Chef Daniel story is just annoying, largely due to its portrayal of Chef Daniel. Bad enough he's a pompous, pretentious and mean-tempered jackass, which of course he's meant to be until his inevitable humbling. The problem is that the story itself never treats him as anything more than a joke. He's supposed to be a French-trained master chef? Then why can't he even pronounce the names of his French dishes right? Why does he claim to have studied the culinary arts from Charles de Gaulle and Thierry Henry? And why, when someone speaks to him in actual French, does he not understand a word? Is he a fraud or what? More likely he's just a vehicle for lazy digs at Westernized Chinese, in the laziest-written and dumbest segment of the movie.

The third one isn't much better either. Once again we are invited to shake our heads at the terribly un-Chinese Boon and Jamie and their shocking disrespect for the institution of the New Year reunion dinner. The problem is that the couple seem to be morons who need to have the significance of this and every other Chinese custom explained to them. Which is the problem as a whole with this movie - yes yes, family togetherness and adherence to tradition is important, especially during CNY, like we didn't know that already. The film tells us these things in a heavy-handed and frankly quite patronizing manner. The Karen-Ah Meng story conveys the same thing so much better, by showing its characters demonstrating the importance of family through actions rather than condescending speeches.

So there's little I can say about the cast who aren't Neo, Aniu, Afdlin and Koe Yeet; they're all competent but unremarkable, saddled as they are with storylines that are dull at best, insultingly stupid at worst. (Though there is one funny scene about how calculative Boon's father is with angpows.) The abovementioned four however are terrific. Neo nicely dispelled my fears of watching him in drag; his chemistry with Aniu is great fun to watch, and Aniu in turn proves his versatility by effectively playing a very different role than the one he essayed in his directorial effort. Afdlin is, as mentioned, terrific. And newcomer Koe Yeet is super-cute and has a smile that can melt hearts.

But the rest of the movie simply isn't as good. There are three credited screenwriters here - Philip Lim, Adrian Tan, and the director himself - and I'm almost certain that they each wrote one of the three segments individually. I did say it's slightly better overall than Great Day, and it is, in that it's funnier. And it's got the Chinese New Year spirit all over it, which will probably go down great with folks who want to be reminded of how awesome it is to be Chinese. Me, I could've done without that - and yes, I know I'll probably be accused of being a treacherous banana because of this. But hey, I'm the kind of guy who thinks there's nothing wrong with having French cuisine for reunion dinner.

NEXT REVIEW: Haq
Expectations: haven't seen a single good review. Then again, when it comes to local films, I trust no-one's views but my own

Haunted your head lar

Haunted Changi
My rating:




I am a skeptic. Always have been, but particularly so after a few personal experiences with sleep paralysis. (Go ahead and read the Wikipedia article at that link; I bet it'll explain quite a few "true" ghost stories that you've heard.) It's not so much that I cannot brook any possibility of the existence of the supernatural - it's that I think most people are too quick to believe, when there are usually much more prosaic explanations for what they think are ghostly encounters. Such as physiological disorders. Or embellished accounts by superstitious people.

Or hucksters out to sell you something they made up. Like this movie.

A team of filmmakers, comprising director Andrew (Andrew Lau), producer Sheena (Sheena Chung), cameraman Audi (Audi Khalis) and sound engineer Farid (Farid Azlam), set out to make a documentary about Old Changi Hospital - said to be one of the most haunted places in the world. During WW2 it was a Japanese military base, and rumours abound of torture rooms, executions, and secret underground tunnels. During the course of several visits to the abandoned building - during both day and nighttime - a mysterious tragedy befell the team. This film purports to be their recovered footage.

Well, ain't this just the Singaporean Blair Witch Project then? Not only do the characters have the same names as their actors, they have an online marketing campaign - complete with Facebook pages for each character - doing its best to convince you that this story is, like, really real for real. Now, employing an 11-year-old marketing strategy that was widely exposed as a hoax isn't quite the brightest idea - but even that aside, the movie itself can't maintain its own illusion. It's edited - not just for pacing and clarity, but also to add hyperactive MTV-style camera tricks, in an annoying attempt to heighten the scary factor. Um, guys, the whole point of the "found footage" genre is that the film should just show the footage as it was found.

But frankly, the main thing that breaks suspension of disbelief is that it's not a very good movie. The plot simply isn't sufficiently fleshed out. Who are these filmmakers? Are they students working on a school project? Do they have a contract with Discovery Channel or something? What exactly is their documentary about? All they do is tramp around the place with camera rolling and "just see what happens." Why did they forget that it's called Old Changi Hospital? They found a former POW who was imprisoned there, why didn't they interview any former doctors, nurses or patients? (Oh, and about the POW - he starts talking about gruesome medical experiments, then the segment just suddenly fades out. And that's the last we ever hear about these experiments. I have no idea why this scene is there.)

Then Andrew says he met this Chinese national who's been squatting there, a girl named Xiao Juan. Which is an exasperatingly transparent setup whose payoff can be seen coming a mile away, and also makes the characters look like idiots for not seeing the same payoff. And then there's the bit in which the team is joined by a bunch of "Ghost Hunters". They bring along a kid who (badly) acts all possessed, then they freak out and vamoose. It wasn't scary, and it just ups the stupidity quotient. Honestly, there's just nothing believable about this movie, right down to its initial claim that Old Changi Hospital is said to be one of the world's most haunted places. How do you measure such things? Who said it?

Is it scary? Well, okay, it is - if you're shooting in a crumbling abandoned building at night, you'd have to work to make it not scary. But the spooks and the jump-scares just never add up to a solid story, and certainly don't make it a worthwhile movie. Now, I know the fact that I said I'm a skeptic earlier opens me up to accusations of being biased. I'm not. At all. The fact that I don't believe in ghosts and hauntings does not prevent me from enjoying a good ghostly horror movie; because, after all, fiction. But one of my pet peeves is how we, as a not-quite-truly-modern society, tend to accept what is clearly fiction as fact - how gullible people tend to be. This is why every other week, someone gets tricked into having sex with a bomoh or sinseh and/or cheated out of their life savings.

But I guess it wouldn't be fair to lump the makers of this movie in with frauds and criminals, or even to call them hucksters. I can accept that their pseudo-real ad campaign is just that, an ad campaign that hopes to get some viral attention for their little movie. Still, I can't help but think that the real reason why it's not very good is that it is a product of the same credulously superstitious mindset that it's marketed to. Look at Paranormal Activity, which fleshed out the rules of its supernatural milieu in simple yet effective strokes. (And it didn't need an "OMG it really happened!!" ad campaign either.) Haunted Changi doesn't bother to be as inventive - perhaps because they didn't want to contradict how ghosts and spirits and hauntings are really like. This is the society we live in, and those who pander to this gullibility will probably make good buck. But they ain't gonna make a good movie.

NEXT REVIEW: Rapunzel: A Tangled Tale
Expectations: I liked The Princess and the Frog, so, okay

Pray, pray that Phua Chu Kang goes away

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

No kiasu jokes, promise

Kidnapper
My rating:




Apologies to Singaporean readers for labeling this review "Made in Malaysia". You guys don't make that many movies, and I doubt I'll be watching so many as to justify creating a whole new "Made in Singapore" label. 'Sides, it stars one Malaysian actor and two Malaysian-born actors. (And hey, are we not, at heart, one nation country culture y'know what, forget it.) Having not watched any Singaporean films before, I had no idea what to expect - other than McGarmott's helpful comment that they tend to try too hard.

Well, yes, Kidnapper did. But I'd rather a movie try too hard than not try hard enough.

Lim Seng Huat (Christopher Lee) is a ne'er-do-well cab driver raising his son Wei Siang (Jerald Tan) on his own whilst fighting a custody case against his ex-wife. Wei Siang is kidnapped by the sadistic Ah Hu (Jack Lim) who mistakes him for the son of the wealthy Mr Sng - but even after discovering his mistake, Hu continues to threaten Lim for the $1 million ransom by torturing the boy. Hu's accomplice Mrs Sng (Phyllis Quek), the stepmother of the intended victim, begins to regret her involvement; but not even her revelation that her daughter Jia Wei (Regene Lim) is also Hu's child deters him. As Mrs Sng wrestles with her conscience, Lim scrambles to raise the money within the 36-hour deadline - before Hu loses patience and murders his son.

Here's what I mean by trying too hard: this is a somewhat over-directed movie. Director Kelvin Tong goes a little overboard with the arty shots, quick cuts and fancy colour treatment. Being unfamiliar with Tong's filmography, I don't know if this is his thing; here, the Tony Scott treatment is hit-and-miss, occasionally effective at generating suspense but also occasionally distracting. Also kinda overboard is the "parents will do anything for their children" theme, as demonstrated by Lim's increasingly desperate means to raise the ransom money. He gets beaten up (and pissed on!) by the Ah Longs whom he attempts to borrow money from, and goes so far as to seek out black-market organ traffickers. 'Cos Singaporean cab drivers are just that well-connected, it seems.

I keed, I keed. It's actually quite a slick little movie, and largely effective as a high-octane thriller. It has its fair share of plot holes - why does Hu keep pressing Lim for money he knows the penniless cabbie doesn't have? Why doesn't Lim go to the police when his predicament becomes more and more dire? - but it moves fast enough that you can set those questions aside and just go along for the ride. And the script is really quite smart, and has plenty of unexpected reversals in the cat-and-mouse game between Lim and Hu. There's a bit where Lim is making the ransom drop, and Hu makes him climb up and down several flights of stairs. It seems like Hu is just sadistically toying with him, and he probably is - but it's also part of Hu's plan to literally grab the money from him and run, when Lim is exhausted and unable to give chase.

And there's also some solid performances in here, chief amongst them Christopher Lee. His low-rent cabbie character is a far cry from evil wizards and Sith Lords (and I bet he's never heard that one before), but Lee never misses a beat through all the melodramatics the plot puts him through; he keeps the audience rooting for him from start to finish. Jack Lim also couldn't be more different from his role in Woohoo! - he plays a truly hissable villain, as cold and vicious as he is intelligent. There are hints of deeper motivation in him, something that made him particularly despise the bond between parent and child - it's a pity the film doesn't explore that further. I've read reviews that rubbish Phyllis Quek's acting, but I thought she was perfectly effective, if unexceptional. (Doesn't hurt that she's pretty damn hawt.) And there's a pair of terrific performances from Jerald Tan and Regine Lim, and they are exceptional for Asian child actors.

This is gonna be a pretty short review, because on the whole, Kidnapper is just well-made but unremarkable. What's particularly sad that is that it fails to nail its ending - it doesn't quite satisfactorily deliver its emotional payoff, both in terms of the villain's comeuppance and the hero's deliverance. (Also, I really wish films that lack the budget for proper car stunts would stop trying to do them in CGI. It never works! A car stunt is supposed to make you go "whoa!" A CGI car stunt just makes you go "cheh.") But it is well-made; that much is clear, and that's why it deserves three-and-a-half stars. Kelvin Tong may have tried a little too hard, but I sure wish some of that would rub off on our filmmakers. Most of those morons don't even try.

NEXT REVIEW: Andartu Terlampau... 21 Hari Mencari Suami
Expectations: siiigh