Majid the Legend

"Majid The Legend" is a 14 minute short film produced by Studiomonki, as part of 15 Shorts (films) sponsored by National Art Council Singapore.

The story is about the early meetings between Majid Arif and Choo Seng Quee, the latter whom eventually become his coach during the 1960s. The film is shot over three days in Pulau Ubin. 

I played the role of Uncle Choo,  the tough coach who eventually brought the Malaysia Cup back to Singapore in 1978.

I met Uncle Choo soon after the Cup was won at his sports shop in Plaza Singapura. I remember him to be a tall man with a booming voice. We were curious teens who had heard of his sports shop and wanted to steal a glimpse of him. He noticed us and ushered us to come into his shop.

That meeting was the only reference I had of his behaviour, as I could not find any publicly available videos of him. I remember that he spoke in immaculate English, so I asked for some of the dialogue that sounded too colloquial, to be corrected. 

Now watch the film:

BEHIND THE SCENES:

On the way to Pulau Ubin

The only kampong left in Singapore, populated by farmers, fishermen and shopkeepers.

With Rizhwan, who plays the role of Majid Arif. 

If you are interested in other posts of shoots in Pulau Ubin, click here.

At the premiere of Majid The Legend at Capitol Theatre Singapore.

Asia TV Forum 2019 - What I Have Learnt

I have learned the following from the 20th Asia TV Forum & Market 2019 held at Marina Bay Sands Expo from 3rd to 6th December 2019:

1. Streaming
The video streaming market in the year 2019 is worth USD25 billion and is projected to double by the year 2023.  Free-to-air TV will fade away to streaming video-on-demand and subscribed (paid) video-on-demand (SVOD).  The SVOD space is getting very crowded with Amazon, Apple & Disney, joining Netflix and HBO in the global market, among the many incumbents. I think the year 2020 will be a blood bath for SVOD players.

2. Community based TV
These networks create special interest group communities through social network and crowdsourced ideas, putting these ideas to a vote in the community. The selected ideas/content are then developed using resources, crowdfunded from the community. Eg. The Chinese LGBT community.

3. Alliances
Strategic Alliances that create online entertainment that is pertinent to specific end customers with special needs. For instance, creating videos appropriate for airline or bus rides, like ensuring that the content family friendly, tab bite-sized duration and easily downloaded/viewed from the mobile phone. That means planning visuals for the very small screen.

4. Format
The viewership of long form videos (more than 20mins) are overtaken by short form videos in the year 2018.

Further, micro-form videos like Tik Tok, Haokan, KuaiShou,...etc are gaining traction very rapidly and may overtake short form videos.  Micro-form videos started in the 3rd and 4th tier cities in China, initially catering to young people 15-30 years old. It has now spread to big cities and a cross-section of demographic.

Sponsors like shorter or micro videos because they are easier to plant brand advertising in them and monetise.

5. Product placements
Brands have invaded the short form space. For true story telling unfettered by advertising, short films will have to be funded from sources independent from commercialism. Eg. 15 Shorts and Storeys, in Singapore.

6. Making content travel
a. This can happen by leveraging on countries with similar language and cultural background.
b. Using actors that are known in the countries you are selling to.
c. Remaking of content with actors local to the target market.

7. Good Content 
Good content will live longer in the Internet ecosystem of Over-The-Top (OTT) web streaming platforms, as it gets relaunched and re-licensed many times in many platforms.



Other posts...

ATF 2018 - What I Have Learned

The Future of Cinema and TV

Review - So Long, My Song (地久天长) (2019)

DATES ON POSTER WRONG!!!! 
SHOULD BE THE MONTH OF OCTOBER 2019!!! 

"So Long, My Son" could well be called "So Long this Movie", as you would have had 3 hours taken away from your life if you had watched it. It is something the producer and director Wang Xiaoshuai ought to reflect on. 

There are numerous extraneous scenes that could have easily landed on the editing room cutting floor and had it reduced to a 90-minute film. There are also numerous confusing scene flashbacks that are swapped in-and-out among three time zones within the story. I think if the editor had wanted to confuse the audience and then call it art, then he would have certainly succeeded.

While the film has interesting content, the tensions are not built up gradually into a climax, but instead they go through a repeating saw-toothed up-and-down journey on a relatively flat plain. This makes it quite a drag at times.

The film won the Silver Bear (Best Actor & Best Actress) awards in the 69th Berlin International Film Festival this year.Wang Jingchun and Yong Mei definitely deserve the award, as they fleshed out their characters brilliantly. Their characters go through a series of excruciating grief - the grief of losing their son, of losing friends, of finding them back, of living through the changing political climates in China,...etc.

In all, it is a film worth catching if you do not mind killing 3 hours away. In the era of Youtube and Netflix, I suspect this will not go down well with the majority of people.

I watched it at the Asian Film Archive's Oldham Theatre.

If you are interested to catch it, click here


SO LONG MY SON by Wang Xiaoshuai (Singapore Trailer) from Anticipate Pictures on Vimeo.

Sounds of Our City Episode 6 Podcast

Click here

Thank you Pitch Media Asia for having me as a guest in Episode 6 of Sounds of Our City Podcast to talk about "The Languages of Singapore".

The interview location was at Swiss Hotel Merchant Court at Clarke Quay, Singapore River. My father's shop was just across the road at New Market Street and the hotel location was where my father's godown (warehouse) used to be. Read Bridge connects the hotel side of the river bank to the other side where my father used to live. He lived in a tiny room in a shop house with my mum and six of my siblings. We lived there until we got a two-bedroom flat at Redhill Close. Then, it was such a big relief in terms of space by the standards of those days. However by today's standards, we were still cramped up like sardines.

The hotel area is where the Teochew quarters used to be. Teochews are seafarers and traders and we are used to live near rivers and ports. So once upon a time, you would find Teochews around the Singapore River and Hougang (the river behind). There are still more Teochews living in Hougang till  this day.

For more about how Singapore used to be in the 1960s, click here (warning: a very long, but worthy article to read.)

To get enough gigs as an actor in Singapore, one has to be multi-lingual. I act in English, Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew. I have also acted in Malay, Japanese and Thai. The same act delivered in a different language evokes a different emotion. I don't know why it is so exactly and can only guess that subconsciously there must be a powerful association among the sounds, meaning and memories that results in the different emotions.

It is an advantage to be able to speak different languages. When I speak the language native to the place, the locals lean towards me and I often get away with a lot of things. :)


UPDATE:





To know about languages of Singapore and listen to the full interview, click here.

https://soundcloud.com/soundsofourcity/languages-of-singapore-part-2-mandarin-teochew

For other media interview posts, see:


For my interview by "A Hero's Journey", click here.


For my interview by Lush Magazine, click here.


For my interview by Internet Radio 988, click here.


For my interview by RSVP, click here

The Hero's Journey

For the full interview, click here.

The Oxford Dictionary defines a hero as: "A person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities."

So it is an honour to be interviewed by The Hero's Journey's Peter Kuster.

The Hero's Journey is a guide to people who makes money doing what they love, living in various great cities around the world.

I would also like to take this opportunity to send my tributes and love to the many unsung heroes out there. Particularly those who have taken the plunge to live their passions in the arts: to be a professional singer, musician, dancer, actor, sculptor, painter,...etc. I understand the hardeous, but satisfying journey that you are undertaking.

For the full interview, click here.

For the other interviews I have been in:

Asia?" Lush The Magazine.

Radio Inteview at 988

Interview by RSVP Singapore

Financial Action Thriller

We are very flattered to be featured in the lifestyle magazine Lush. Thanks so much.

Currently, we are in discussion with a studio to produce the film. The responses have been very  positive and it is progressing very well. I think it is because there are relatively few financial action-thrillers around, especially one set in Asia, written by a real Cybersecurity consultant and inspired by real incidents. This is probably the first one.

We will post more about the production as we progress. So watch this space!

To read the article in The Lush Magazine, click here.

The Planking Challenge

Once in a while, it is good to do something different and fun that lifts the spirit. So here I am at the launch of Mobile Legend: Bang Bang (an online game) at City Square Mall in Singapore on the 19th May 2019. They wanted the presence of local legendary characters, and so interestingly, they found me. No, rather they found Warrant Officer (WO) Lee Teck Hong, a character in Hentak Kaki, that is arguably a legendary character to those who have served in the Singapore Army. I think they were looking for local characters that could draw crowds that are different from their usual target groups.

The Encik is back!!! LOL

I was to appear, smile and wave, and then throw a Planking Challenge to members of the audience,. The one that planked longest with me will walk away with game character figurine.

#MLBB #515UNITE

We were not short of participants. We asked for 5 and got 10 participants rushing forward. They came up on stage, did the planking and dropped out like flies, bar a few,  as the clock ticked away. By the 5th minute, the emcee was getting impatient, as he was wondering how long it was going to last. So when there was only one contestant left, the emcee declared him the winner and awarded him the game figurine. The planking lasted about 6 minutes, longer than my usual practice of 4 minutes.

I lasted longer than usual that day as the stage was flat and carpeted, and so it was easier to plank. This contrasted with training outdoors in the park, where the ground is uneven, slippery, sloping and painful on the lower arms as they press against twigs and other hard objects. As a result, the body is constantly struggling to maintain the equilibrium planked position, adding a lot more tension to the abdominal muscles.

This is the clip on that day:

During the brainstorming and planning sessions, we wanted to do tougher challenges like power push-ups,...etc, but gave those ideas up because of the risks of injuries. So we ended up with planking - still tough, but safe. Low risks.

This is what I do during my workouts:

Thanks for having me Mobile Legend.

You may also like to visit the posts:

Hentak Kaki

Winner of Silver Screen Award (Short Film), 24th Singapore International Film Festival 2011.

Best Performance Award, 3rd Singapore Short Film Award 2012.

Went viral online to about 1,000,000++ hits.