Heading to the Hong Kong International Film Festival and Filmart 2008

The past few days whirred by in a blur. Just as I usually was when involved in a production, I found myself buried deeply into the editing process of CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, my first actual short film in more than a year. By Sunday (16th of March), I had finished the first cut of the film, and also celebrated dad's birthday.

I walked into an anti-piracy operation

(The following entry should NOT be taken seriously)

Pardon my lack of updates. Been rushing with the editing of CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (production stills are here and here). Need to get it done before I fly off to Hong Kong on Monday.

Went to film some cutaways with Lesly The Cinematographer today. After getting some stunning shots from an alley and a park nearby, I needed shots from a PS2 football video game, but to my horror, neither of my FIFA or WINNING ELEVEN games were around. So Lesly and I headed to Amcorp Mall to make some quick purchases of these games.

Reaching the one and only videogame shop of the mall, I saw a man standing outside, taking photos. I dismissed the guy as some wannabe camera enthusiast, or annoying tourist, and immediately walked into the shop, flipping through the folders of PS2 games.

I vaguely noticed the photographer calling at me, and then someone approached.

"Dik, boleh keluar sekejap?" (Kid, can you leave the shop for a while?)

"Hm?" I replied. Eyeing the photographer who was looking at me, slightly annoyed that the man had the guts to call me out of the shop just so he could take his precious little photos.

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY Production Stills (2 March 2008)

Here are the photos from the last day of the CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY shoot. Once again, they are all taken by Nikki Tok. (The first part of this series of photo is here)

Suanie's blog readers were confounded by this entry of hers where she posted a photo of her in make-up. So I'll reveal the mystery.

Roland Emmerich's 10,000 B.C.

10,000 B.C. was a magical cinematical experience. It's been a while since I had so much fun in the theater while watching what I would normally regard as a shitty film.

I saw it at KLCC on Friday (7th of March). It was a rowdy crowd. People laughed at the most inappropriate moments (but then, the film IS full of unintentional hilarity) and made amusing comments as the film went on. Like the few women behind me, where I would overheard lines like:

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY Production Stills (1 March 2008)

All these photos from the CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY shoot were taken by Nikki Tok, who helped me a lot with the production, definitely Da Huang Pictures' Miss Everything.

Happy Birthday To Me

24 years ago, on the 6th of March, in a Singaporean hospital. I was born.

That's all i have to say.

Daniel Day-Lewis' monumental performance in 'There Will Be Blood'

Yeah, I really haven't been reviewing much lately. Had a lot to do with the fact that I hadn't seen anything worth reviewing lately. What's the point of reviewing a film that merely gave me a 'meh' reaction when I probably have much more to write if I thought the film was really good, or really horrible.

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY Shoot Is Over!

I've spent the whole weekend shooting CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY. And it's finally over! I was surprised that the shoot went on so smoothly, and despite the crazy weather in the past two days, we managed to overcome the odds!

The whole idea for the CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY screenplay started sometime in last October, when I was borrowing some space from Da Huang Pictures to hold an audition for KURUS. While waiting for candidates to come, I was throwing out short film ideas to filmmakers Liew Seng Tat and Tan Chui Mui in a desperate bid to break my year-long creative drought.

The exchange was like this: