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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