Anniversary

【JsF Film】 Anniversary Trailer from JsF on Vimeo.

A splendid film directed by Joseph Hsu. A sombre and morbid tale of two lonely souls converging on the same quest to be close to their loved one.The location was at Choa Chu Kang Christian Cemetry. It was a very hot day and we all got sunburned and reddened like cooked lobsters. 

One of the few places in Singapore where one can enjoy open spaces

This is the cemetery for thoese without next of kin.

Aki & Me.

Reunion Dinner

Director: Shawn Wang. Director of Photography: Jasmine Poh.
Actors: Michael Chua, Shannen Tan, Simorrah Nadya Seow.

This is a story of a depressed and drunk father who took his frustrations of his wife walking out of him on his two young girls.

Production time was extremely tight. We didn't have prior rehearsals.The dialogue and camera positions were tried out  with adjustments and adaptation with the movements and emotions on set. We also had to rush to finish the scene before sunset.

I was particularly cautious using the (real) knife so close to the two girls and suggested that I held her hand firm on the table to restrict movements and avoid accidents.

The beer is real and its overflowing onto the floor and being knocked over the tables were spontaneous! :)  Realistic visuals like these do happen when we allow them to.

My Radio Interview at 988

I was interviewed at Radio 988 on the 30th Oct 2012. It was fun!

Radio interviews are vanity fairs mostly. That said, I hope that my unusual and very late entry into acting, as shared during the interview, has given others the courage to take action upon the aspirations they (secretly?) harbour. It can be any aspirations, not just about acting.

Life is short. Just do it! A whole new world awaits you! :)

IPS PRISM: Year 2022?

This is Insitute of Policy Studies Singapore PRISM's projection of what Singapore is like in 2022. In involves a lot of audience's contribution by expressing what they want their future leaders and society to be.
This is their official trailer.




This is the part that I played - as the salesman for Licken, a laboratory grown synthetic brand of meat.


Outside the theatre, one of the ushers asked me if I was the Licken salesman, then pursued with whether I would eat synthetic meat myself. I told her that I am only an actor. :)

Greed is Good

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This is a three-minute short film produced by Ngee Ann Polytechnic School of Film and Media Studies and directed by Nicholas Wang. Cinematographer: Ms Sabiruna Madhzar. July 2012.

It is a reflection of the ills that had befallen numerous people in aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse; and how some rogue traders had behaved in the name of obeying instructions from the top.

This is the smallest set for a short film I have ever been in, with two actors and two crew members. The director doubled as the sound man and sometimes also holds the reflector board at the same time. Clean sound was hard to capture as we were on a roof top of International Plaza, right in the Central Business District of Singapore.

So it was not just my messy hair blown against the wind that was the problem!
Though it does looks like it was my fault. :)

Presenting Fort Canning

This is a presentation of Fort Canning Park in Singapore for the web portal "Locals Recommend", sometime last year. It was unscripted, unrehearsed and done mostly over one-take in about an hour - for  spontaneity. I chose to present Fort Canning, precisely for what is said - that it has nature, history and also fun.

Locations

I have posted the following photos to help location directors seek out-of-the-beaten-track places in  Singapore; so that they can shoot somewhere different and save the other lovely, but over used spots like Pulau Ubin, Lorong Buangkok, Arab Street and Chinatown for some other time.

If you are not a locations director, then just sit back and enjoy the pictures - dwell into the history and charms of the locations, by clicking on the links. 

12 Mount Sophia Road 

This building constructed in 1892 by the Crane brothers, and bought by the Methodist Church in 1932, became part of Methodist Girls' School. It was affectionately called the "Tower House". In 1998, the building was acquired by the government is now leased by a Mr Bettin who used it as a pre-school called "The House on the Hill". For more about this lovely house 'on the hill', click here.

Hong Lim Police Station  

This old world colonial style police station still sits by Hong Lim Park and operates as one. It goes almost unnoticed amid the hustle and bustle of the city and could well be used as a backdrop of some romantic stories set in the 1960s.

Aloha Changi Chalet K 

I like this one as it exudes the colours of autumn. It is also snapshot in a virtual time capsule, as it is very unlike elsewhere in Singapore. For more details about the bookings, click here.

National University of Singapore (NUS) Bukit Timah Campus 

The Bukit Timah Campus was the site of Singapore's first tertiary educational institution, Raffles College. It is now occupied by the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, the Bukit Timah Campus and has been home to generations of students for more than 80 years. For more details, click here.

Aston Mansion, Lorong 42 Geylang 

This modest lorong in Geylang is surprising and regal looking entrance to this mansion. With the yellow car in front, it even looks a bit like New York! :)

Sian Keng Tong Temple, Changi Road, next to Lorong 107 

This is one of the few Heng Hua dialect (a southern Chinese dialect in the province of Fujian) temple in Singapore. Very ornate. For more information about the temple, click here.

Yan Kit Village Chinese Temple, Mariam Way, Off  North Upper Changi Road

This temple worships Matsu, the Goddess that fishermen pray before they go to sea. Which means that where it is now used to be very near the seashore. For more information about this temple, click here.

Kushu Island Chinese Temple 

Kusu Island is one of the Southern Islands in Singapore, located about 5.6 kilometres to the south of the main island of Singapore, off the Straits of Singapore. The name means "Tortoise Island" or "Turtle Island" in Chinese; the island is also known as Peak Island or Pulau Tembakul in Malay. From two tiny outcrops on a reef, the island was enlarged and transformed into an island holiday resort of 85,000 square metres. Story passed down by both Malays and Chinese in Singapore says a magical tortoise turned itself into an island to save two shipwrecked sailors - a Malay and a Chinese.

This location has the advantage of housing a Chinese temple and a Malay Kramat (shrine) all in convenient reach,. Being an offshore island also means that sound quality is clean.

For more about Kusu Island, click here.

Kushu Island Chinese Temple 

Kushu Island Malay Kramat  

http://www.streetdirectory.com/asia_travel/travel/travel_id_47475/travel_site_1/

Somewhere along Race Course Road, Little India 

This almost look like in India isn't it? This is a backdrop in one of the feature film, "Back Alley Bulls", by Naicoman (US) Inc, which I acted in last year.

9718 Upper Changi Road North (Opp the Prison) 

Old coffeeshop charm like this is is fast disappearing. Where life is still unhurried in this corner of Singapore.

9718 Upper Changi Road North (Opp the Prison)

9718 Upper Changi Road North (Opp the Prison)

Sim Choon Huat Temple at Moonstone Road 

Former Aerated Water Co, 1177 Serangoon Road, 328231

Former Aerated Water Co, 1177 Serangoon Road, 328231

In 1929, three businessmen Yap Shing Min, Cheng Sze Boo and Tan Kah Woo established the National Aerated Water Company at Hamilton Road, off Lavender Street. It was 1954 when the company moved its premises to the new $500,000 factory near Moonstone Road, off Serangoon Road.

For more details, click here.

The backyard of National Aerated Water.

Former Aerated Water Co, 1177 Serangoon Road, 328231

National Aerated Water, view by the river.

Whampoa River where the National Aerated Water is along.

A quaint house opposite block 2 of Haig Walk.

This very odd zinc house sits in between two condominium properties. It is a village house in the unlikeliest of places.

Same quaint house

Along Balestier Road 

For other posts in this blog that are useful to the production team, click here.

Tamil TV Comedy

This is not a "Good Food Guide" programme with Vasantham star and funny man Vadi Pvss, but a photo taken during the production of "Thiru Valluvan - Season 2". "Thiru Valluvan" is a Mediacorp Vasantham (Tamil) Channel 15-episode Comedy Series, produced by Silverscreen International and directed by Sivakumar, about a central character of the same name. The story in the second season revolves around the mystery of a murder that happened in a condominium.

I acted as one of the condo dwellers who operates a covert loan shark business on the side, out of his wheeler-dealer instincts and greed for the rapidly multiplying profits; supposedly also due to the bad influence of a friend (or so he claims). My dialogues are in English with a smattering of Hokkien and Mandarin, to reflect the multi-racial environment. So you get lines like:

"Your Tamil and English campur ("mix" in Malay) like chap-chai ("mixed vegetables" in Hokkien),... I don't understand anything..."

Acting in comedy is fun. It is a lot like bantering with old friends and capturing them on camera as evidence! Some of the jokes actually came right out of our playful improvisation in between takes. 

I had to remember the dialogue cues (in Tamil) that triggers my dialogue. It was a bit of a challenge at times, as I had to express myself without fully understanding the nuances of what was said. It got easier later on as I learned to respond according to the whole performance of the co-actor.

The cast and crew is a closely knitted bunch and it  feels like family in an outing on set.  Lunches were packs of delicious curries with a mountain of rice. Yes, "mountain of rice" - such is the quantity typically found in Indian food take-away. I feel very happy after every shoot. It was pleasurable and definitely didn't feel like work.

The TV series is expected to be broadcasted sometime around the coming Deepavali.

For my other acts in Hokkien, click here.

... for acts in Mandarin, click here,

... for acts in Japanese, click here.

Still

Producer: Geraldine Lee

Director: Sean Ng

Script: Scene Ng, Rona Edwards, and Diyanah Mustapho'
Actors: Michael Chua & Chiaki Kawamura

This is a film I have been looking forward to act in, as a challenge to deliver its crucial and subtler aspects. It is about the emotional struggles of a middle-aged man caring for his beloved wife who is in mere vegetative state, and burdened by the tedium of making ends meet in modern-day Tokyo.

I am usually very careful with taking up emotional roles, as too much of them can affect me off-reel. Emotional roles draw a lot from within as one gets into character. So I took up the role in "Still" on the merits of its script. It is also the first time that I have to deliver my lines in Japanese. "Japanese 101"  for me was a long time ago in University, so most of the help in the language came from Ms Chiaki Kawamura, who plays the character of the wife.

Production was shot at night. There were a few difficult scenes, among which was the suicide which I have no experience in! :)  I was also literally shivering in the cold bath, as by then, it was already the wee hours of the morning. And so I endured, while the technical aspects (lights, angles, props...etc) were being contemplated and sorted!  A bit of hot water would have been nice, but I think the crew had so much to take care of that it was overlooked. Actually, even I didn't think of it before hand. By then, everyone was also exhausted and I didn't want to make anything more difficult. :)

We wrapped near day break. I was satisfied, but emotionally drained!!!

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The Campaign

"War has rules, mud wrestling has rules - politics has no rules." -  Ross Perot



Executive Producers: Amy Sayres, Jon Poll and Chris Henchy.
Producer: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Jay Roach and Zach Galifianakis. 
Director: Jay Roach.
Starring: Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis 
Screen play: Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy, from a story by Adam McKay & Chris Henchy & Shawn Harwell
Distributed by: Warner Brothers.

Every four years, there will be political films coming out from the United States with their Presidential Elections. In 2008, among others, we had "W", about the outgoing President George W Bush, produced and directed by Oliver Stone; and "Frost Nixon", by Ron Howard for Universal Pictures. 

"The Campaign" is yet another one of such films that attempts to shed some light over the darker side of US Elections, this time by using the brutal punches of slapstick comedy, sex and the championing of the American underdog.  This they did well with the unimpressive and naive local tour guide Marty Huggins  (Zach Galifianakis) who eventually came out on top, against the flamboyant long time Congressman and philanderer Cam Brady (Will Ferrell), over their North Carolina 14th district. All these apparently a direct poke at real life Senator John Edwards from North Carolina and Democratic Vice President nominee in 2004, and Presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008

The plot centres around the battle between Marty and Cam, utilising the dirtiest of personal attacks  that  exploit family and sex scandals, the whole deal funded by big corporation money, facilitated by the Motch brothers, purported a satire of the real life wealthy Koch brothers.

The story depicts how an honest and unlikeliest possible choice like Marty can be, with the help of his new benefactors’ support and a ruthlessly sharp campaign manager, can too be converted into a mean, calculating and cunning beast. This climaxes with Marty literally shooting his opponent down with a cross bow.

As election day closes in, the plot thickens and so are the insults that quickly escalate to injury, burying each other in mud-slinging and back-stabbing. There are subtler symbols of trickery and deceit that is cleverly displayed in the film too, but I will leave that you to discover, so that you will enjoy them more.

In an insane twist to the story that broke the camel's back, the wealthy Motch brothers sold the 14th District en-bloc to Chinese businessmen to build factories and also to import their cheap labour en-masse to produce even cheaper goods and double their profits. This scheming maneuvre sent a chill down my spine, as much of this is already happening in Singapore, as the government has brought in  Chinese construction companies together with their cheap labour en-masse. This has crowded out the locals and kept wages the same for workers for the last ten years!!! This is surreal! Whether this will be the last straw that will break the camel's back remains to be seen of the Singapore Government.

Despite the many hard hitting political films and the democratisation of information via the Internet, rich people continue to be the puppet masters behind the thin veneer of democracy. Democratic governments wants us to believe that democracy exists in full. The autocrats don't even bother pretending. The current play is that money talks and bull-shit walks.  So, the political circus in the US or anywhere else, is here to stay. It will only change when the people change - when virtues pride over greed. Meanwhile, the people deserves the politicians they get, and  politicians deserve the  people  they get.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the movie and laughed my heart out. The guy behind me in the theatre was also laughing and literally almost falling off his chair. So, I would recommend you to watch it too!

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How to Make a Commercial in 5 Easy Steps

To recap:

1. Who are we talking to?

2. Who are you?

3. What is your Brand's personality? 

4. What is the Offer?

5. Time to make your commercial.

A casting director for commercials told me that he looks for only two things in actors for ads, namely: that the actor is to be either very pretty or very funny. ( I guess it doesn't hurt to be pretty AND funny too! ) This is because he has to catch the attention of the audience and sell something in (usually) fifteen seconds. And that, he adds, is the same everywhere all over the world.

But are there any other way for ads to sell? Other than 'sex', 'sex' and 'sex'??! 

That's an old adage - 'sex sells'. But what does sex sell? If the audience remember the 'sex' more than the product, then it wouldn't work too!

Check the following ads out to see if they are sold based on the above five points and if the actors are really 'pretty' or 'funny'; or if 'sex sells'.

Now which product do you remember out of the ads?

Do the images fit their brand?

Are there 'call for action' at the end of the ads?

There are some who say that some ads plant subliminal messages in the videos to make their products more appealing. Subliminal messages are any sensory stimuli below an individual's threshold for conscious perception. What does that mean? Check the following video...

This is a photo I captured candidly by the shore in Singapore. Do you think it has any subliminal messages, even if it is an inadvertent result? Did you see anything 'evil'?

So watch out with what you put out next time, for you may be perceived to be manipulative! :)

If you haven't already done so, do take 10 seconds to fill out the survey on the top right of this page. It helps for me to know who is the audience. Thanks.

Other posts which you may find interesting are:
"Robert Redford Interviews", click here 
"Who Am I?", click here.


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Moonwalk

. . .

This is part of the commercial for Geodis Wilsons Industrial Projects Logistics Solutions. For the full clip, click here.

I did this act mostly for the fun of getting into the astronaut suit. It was hot inside, under the tropical sun, but after seeing the finished product, I felt it was all worth it.

This was how it actually looked like on set.

And this is what kids think I am. Who am I? Click here.

It was hot inside...

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A Hokkien Spewing Loan Shark

An extract from "A Price For Everything", a 10-minute film by RetroArts, directed by Yanni Ang.

In an ideal world, there would only be happy stories and scripts, not stories of gambling addictions, loan sharks, gangsters, foul language, kidnap and murder. And with that, I have just summarized the story of this film. 

I must confess that I had once upon a time fantasized of playing the role of a Hokkien (a Southern Chinese dialect) spewing gangster, and viola, here I am. So I would watch my thoughts here on, for they will come true!

The director wanted the dialogue to be colloquial and natural, deliberately careless with formal constructs and grammar - the street lingo of gangsters in Singapore, that is, the older gangsters, as the younger ones now speak Mandarin and Singlish.

I have butchered this clip out from the film proper myself. A very rough cut, since I had to hurry this through in between shoots and was working with very limited free software. The original film editing is way better.

Gangster roles are loud. There is a lot of shouting, intimidation, struggles and action. It is aggravating just living such a life just for the shoot, let alone being stuck with it for life! Thank God, this is only a fantasy - a film!

I prefer blissful scripts. One that makes me feel more relaxed after the shoot, than before. It happened before! Check it out, click here.

For my other infamous gangster act - click here.

Accents

This is a clip off the Singapore Airlines Awards Night corporate video.

Those Japanese who speak flawless English would probably love to clobber me for stereotyping their accent, the same reason some Chinese would like to do the same to Fu Mun Chu in Hollywood.

In this production, I was given the script about an hour before to memorise and think of how I can speak in such a way as to re-enact the experience of Mr Ito, who is a very satisfied Japanese passenger. It was a lot of sweat!

I learned a few things from this experience:

- That there are recurring patterns that one can copy in an accent.

- That to sound natural, the voice should come from the diaphragm and not the throat.

- That if you imagine you are the person you are trying to mimic, it helps.

Incidentally, this is good practice for a coming short film in Japanese this month, where I will act as a Japanese with a very emotive story line of performing euthanesia on his ailing wife.

Teaching Drama

Children are lovely. Along with puppies, kittens and flowers, they are my window to the divine. 

That said, teaching 36 children speech and drama ain't heaven, especially if it was to jump start  them into acting, compiling their own script and performing within five hours. Coming back from a photography assignment in Malaysia in the wee hours of the same morning with the class starting at 8 am, didn't help either.

And of course these little tots were no angels. Much of the time, they were running around and chatting away incessantly. Kids will be kids. With their boundless energy expanding into their everlasting bliss, they love taunting their teacher to see how far they can get away with and push the limits - ironically, the kind of attitude we want our artists to be. So I guess they were off to a good start.

The training started with the usual (physical) warming up exercises, then acting exercises to get them to move, to focus on different parts of their body and to reflect on how they felt while doing so. This I feel is an important exercise, as students are rarely taught to interprete their feelings elsewhere in the mainstream curriculum, if at all. Next, I got each one of them to take turns to stand in front of the class to introduce themselves. That way, they were compelled to project their voices to the back of the class where I moved the rest of their classmates to.

After that they were to act according to how they were inspired from pictures randomly picked from a bag.

The highlight of the class was when they were split into six groups to write their own script, do their own rehearsals and then ultimately presenting their performance. Here, I was really impressed with their creativity, resourcefulness and enthusiasm. Surprising considering their initial boisterous reception to their teacher. :)

In the end, they all said that they love the experience and had learned a few things!!! Five hours weren't enough time to make anyone an expert drama artiste, but judging from their enthusiasm, I think they were inspired.

That done, I had to rushed for my train to go to my next assignment, which was a union corporate training video complete  with long collective bargaining dialogues and union jargon. That was another grueling three-day shoot, and another story for another post.

Amid laid-back kampong (village) charm before landing in Singapore for the drama class with 36 boisterous kids!

Reminisce

REMINISCE from Tan Jiahui on Vimeo.


Cast: Michael Chua & Teh Siew Peng
Make-up & logging: Felicia Quah
Sound direction & Editing: Vivian Koh
Cam & Gaffer: Mark Wee
Direction of Photography: Choo Han Pin
Written, Produced and Directed by Tan Jiahui


"For my Grandfather.
May you rest in peace." Jiahui

If you have felt the depressive monotony, but yet lightened by the token surprise at the end, then the film would have done its magic in its brief three minutes.

Marriage comes as a package. The person we love and marry will one day die and leave us, no matter what. Reminiscence of old times is sweet, but it robs us of the present. 

This is personal project of Jiahui. The script is in Hokkien, a southern Chinese dialect from the Province of Fujian, now not commonly spoken by young people in Singapore. Production took half a day (including the makeup) sometime last year (2011), amid the backdrop of the mildly quaint JTC apartment blocks in Jurong, west side in Singapore. 

This is the first time I am playing such an advanced age. It makes me reflect about life and how I would rather choose to live happier times in my later years.

Rapid Ageing in Progress...

For more Hokkien stuff, click here.

Robert Redford Interviews

Here are some very useful points for producers, directors, cast and crew alike, to ponder (the bullet points in blue are my views):

Fame - that can lead you to be treated like an object, then make you behave like an object, then ultimately, becoming an object

• That's why we see some good actors dropping out abruptly after they reached 'stardom', as they shifted their focus to fame and decadent lifestyles, instead of their craft.

On picking a winner - that you can't apart from believing in the story of the character and do your best.

• That actors should remember that ultimately it is the script that counts and their own performance is what they have control over. We don't really know whether it will work with the audience or not until the film is screened. Film producers and investors ought to take note of this.

That he has not seen some of his own films, because of the belief of not looking back to his past as he doesn't want it to affect his future performance.

• This means not to be obsessive about the past. Enjoy it, but move on.

That he is selective and tough on what he wants to do.

• All too often, I see actors accepting any gig that comes by, without regard for what they really want to do. This is largely due to the fear of not being able to get enough gigs to make ends meet. However, fear is not going to get us anywhere we want in life. The result of such actors is that they become typecast to do many minor/extra roles, then find it hard to get out of their stereotype cast.
• The British actor Anthony Hopkins once said that he chooses  roles that gives him the opportunity to impress the audience.

That he didn't want to be merely a part of that representing something, but be something in a script. For that he asked for his character in "The Way We Were" to be modified to reflect that. He didn't want to be merely be a handsome model waiting for the girl to fall in love with.

• He put this very delicately. What he probably meant was that he didn't want to be just another 'pretty face'. All too often we see films filled with handsome actors just to cover up shallow characters existing in an empty plot with poor dialogues.
• A nice pair of legs can only walk you this far, after that you really need to perform. :)

Small films can be fun. They are simple to manage, not mired by bureucracy and big technologies like helicopters and cranes, that take the soul out of film making.

• And while some in Singapore moan about the small projects that are available here, being small can be beautiful. There is more room for creativity. Props, attire and movements can be decided on the go, if desirable, without having to fight the armies of different art directors, prop designers, costume designers, makeup artists, choreographers...etc. When too much money is at stake, spontaneity often has to give.
• As it is small, it is not viciously competitive and so everyone are friends and  here for the love of it. There are not many workplaces where you can find everyone there out of passion. So enjoy the small ones before the big ones take the innocence out of you. :)

That Sundance Film Festival is a commitment that took longer time that he expected to establish, but it is something that he wants to put back into the industry.

• We can give back to the industry in smaller ways if we are not up to starting something big. For starters, we can help out in student films.

If you like this blog, go to the bottom of the right hand side column and join this site. 

Cigar

. .

Title: Cigar (10-minutes)
Script Writer/Director: Raven Navaro, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA)
Actors: Michael Chua, Jack Ngu, Esther Low.
Production date: 17 April 2012.

This is a final year project of Raven Navaro, from NAFA. I accepted this role in part to support a student project  and also because I like the character of the emotionally beaten up cynic who expresses his romantic jeopardy eloquently using the metaphor of cigars.

I had only one day to memorize and internalise the script and the whole ten-minute film was shot in six hours in a pub in Little India, Singapore. It didn't help that the location was available one hour late, to start off with. 

Eventually, we overran by two hours to the dismay of the pub owner, who was also upset that we smoked in his premises - something he thinks is illegal in Singapore - which could well be a mere paranoia, as a pub is not a 'pub' (or 'public house' in full) until it is opened to the public. Indeed,  a uniquely Singaporean argument through and true, one that is self-regulating and self-censuring with a blind obedience to the law. 

This film is about the main character Matthew, played by yours truly, who has just broken up with his girl friend, only to stumble onto an attractive young lady in the pub who was irritating him with her cigar smoke. As it turned out, the young lady was lighting the cigar as a sign of respect and remorse for not being able to safely deliver a baby and that the baby finally died the day before. 

As he found out later that she is a doctor and her reason for lighting up, he felt embarrassed and apologised, thereby turning the unfriendly and accidental encounter into a blossoming romance. That in part facilitated by the bartender who brought the two together to rekindle, while keeping the distance and etiquette that bartenders are not to interfere with the private affairs of customers.

In the end, just out from a failed relationship, Matthew felt cold feet at the prime time to commit his love for the young lady and brought the otherwise happy relationship to an abrupt end. Instead, he lays the blame on a Goddess that he thinks exists in the pub who is jealous and loves putting any romance that happens in the pub to disappear just like his cigar smoke.

PS.

By the way, did I look miserable enough to play the role of the heartbroken Matthew? :)
I normally do not smoke, but did this only for the purpose of the shoot. Esther (playing the lady character) on the other hand, was enjoying her cigar away!

If you like this blog, go to the bottom of the right hand side column and join this site. 

Crimewatch 2011 Episode 6

Crimewatch (since 1986), produced by:
National Crime Prevention Council, Singapore and Singapore Police Force.
Original Broadcast Channel: Mediacorp TV

This episode was shot last summer.


In this scene, I was coached by the director Joey Cheung, to blow my top and be fuming mad about the club premises being broken in for 3 times in a month. Sporting that formidable beard helped in looking angrier than the character actually was. The beard was a remnant from a feature film character (in "Back Alley Bulls") where I played the role of a big time gangster.  It was not a requirement for this club manager role. :)


This angry scene was there  to allow the investigating officers to exercise restrain and the opportunity to demonstrate to the audience, their patience in dealing with the difficult members of the public they meet sometimes. The two investigating officers in the scene are real police officers and were surprisingly soft spoken. Actually too soft spoken for the sound man to pick up their dialogues! :) I don't know if that is their normal pitch in an actual crime scene or was it that they were new with acting in front of a camera and crew. :) Anyway, we had to repeat the take a few times. It was ok, they are police officers, not actors, and one of them is on air only for the first time.

The story is about a real life single-mum, Ng Bee Hong, who was given a job at the club as a cashier but was tempted to steal the money, foolishly thinking that there will not be enough audit trails to nail her down quickly. What was more silly was that she even took her daughter to commit the crime together. The story ended with the police cornering and arresting them in their apartment  in the presence of her lived in boyfriend, who was also living off the finances of the wrong-doing Bee Hong.  Bee Hong was sentenced to 26 months jail, the boy friend to 3 months jail and the little girl let off without a charge given the circumstances.

This  real life story is one of the cases that the two investigating officers (that you see in the video) handled. Kudos to them. By the way, investigating officers lead very busy lives. I know that through my time teaching them in the Advanced Diploma in Police Studies at Temasek Polytechnic some years ago. 


So the next time you have to meet an investigating officer in a scene, be nice to them, don't blow your top like how Mr Wong did!

Let us know if you are a film producer, director, actor,... or just someone interested in films,... in the survey, so it will help us to post articles of more pertinent issues.