A boisterous, on-the-nose comedy about three cash-strapped Singaporeans living in government projects. Low-budget pic, released
May 7, has made history in the tiny island republic by taking S$5 million ($3 million) in its first two months, becoming the all-time top Chinese-lingo grosser (overtaking all of Jackie Chan's oeuvre) and even beating out such Hollywood blockbusters as
Indipendence Dayon the B.O. charts. The movie's runaway biz has put real lead in the pencil of the nascent Singaporean industry, and follows the growing worldwide trend of truthful, locally themed comedies perking up moribund industries. With its cast of established TV stars, irreverent approach to life in the sanitized republic and recognizable setting among HDB (Housing Development Board) tenants and loan sharks, pic has hit a popular nerve in Singapore, drawing repeat business.
Some 85% of its dialogue is in earthy Hokkien, the dominant Chinese dialect on the island.
Central trio are Chew Wah-keong (scripter Jack Neo), a married-with-kids 40-year-old who's permanently up to his ears in bills; Ong (Mark Lee), a longhaired doofus who renovates apartments; and pudgy, geeky-looking Hui (Henry Thia), a waiter at a sidewalk cafe. When Chew is suddenly passed over for promotion at the trading
company where he's worked all his life, he blows his top, calls his slimy boss "an old fag" and quits. Ong, meanwhile, has borrowed 40 grand from a loan shark and is likely to have his legs broken if he doesn't repay in two weeks. Hui's problems are more personal than pecuniary: how to pull women when you have zero career
prospects and a face like a teapot.
Tech credits on the S$1 million production are unadorned but pro. The deliberate use of background noise to color the dialogue and the occasional employment of sophisticated camera moves hint at a greater intelligence behind the production than appears on the surface.
Derek Elley