Tokyo Day 2: Clubs Recruitment Day in Waseda University

This morning, I decided to visit Waseda University for the very first time. When I crossed the bridge to the university, I saw this:

My Last Day in Malaysia. My First Day in Japan.

I tried to compare the day I left for Perth in 2004 with the day I left for Japan and both days couldn't be any more different.

过去。 现在。 未来。

她:
曾经...
他:
曾经什么?
她:
怀念曾经
他:
嘿! 不在乎天长地久，只在乎曾经拥有
她:
应该吧
她:
人总是喜欢怀念以往
他:
记忆是痛苦的根源
她:
无可否认
她:
可是只有回忆才让你感受到人生的甜美
他:
我喜欢向前看. 不喜欢过去的我.也不喜欢被当成是以前的我
她:
无论什么时候，都是自己
她:
以前还是以后
她:
都应该珍惜
他:
当然.可是我只期待自己的成长.记忆不可靠,很容易把一切美化了,戏剧化了.
她:
个人想法
他:
如果只执着过去,把以前的都当成最好,那么对现在及未来太不公平了.
他:
本人毫无内涵的想法
她:
哈。。
她:
太不一样的观念
他:
我并非否定记忆的重要性, 只不过觉得最好的不一定在过去. 就忽略了现在. 而且, 如果我不相信明天会更好,那么就太没意思了.

An Empress And The Warriors 江山美人

After viewing the trailer (I was already giggling at the 'romantic' scenes between Leon Lai and Kelly Chen), and reading its early reviews in Hong Kong, I was already expecting the worst from AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS. Directed by Tony Ching Siu Tung (he often works as an action choreographer and is Zhang Yimou's frequent collaborator, working on the action scenes in HERO, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS and CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, he was also behind the badass martial arts scene in the godly Bollywood superhero flick KRRISH), starring Donnie Yen, Kelly Chen and Leon Lai, AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS is the kind of film you need to avoid if you were seriously looking for a good film to watch.

I'm Going To Japan (For 2 Years)

Guess it's time to make the announcement now.

My PC.com Magazine Cover Story Recounts My Nokia N95 Filmmaking Misadventures

Swiftly we prepared to do the scenes with Darren and Magessan together. I burst into the room in dramatic fashion while Erna was practising with the two guys. Darren was in the midst of doing a fake but shrill-sounding laugh.

"All right, as you may know already, this scene is simple, our poor James Bond will find himself being tickle tortured by the sadistic Dr Bhol Le." I explained. "And James Bond will laugh within the inch of his life."

I paused and held up the two feathers Erna bought for me.

"But you don't have to worry about that. You're really going to get tickled."

"He's not ticklish." Magessan said. Darren nodded.

"WHAT? How could this be?" I exclaimed, the two feathers in my hand went limp immediately.

"But I can fake it!" Darren said.

After spending most of the 23 years of my life being so ticklish, I was thrown off by the idea of someone not being ticklish...

Exploring the Hong Kong Filmart 2008

I've returned from Hong Kong last night, but I'll chronicle the last day of my trip there.

19th of March began early because I had to rush to the HK Convention and Exhibition Center (HKCEC) for the KURUS (Days of the Turquoise Sky) screening at 10am. Despite being really early, and neither of the booths at Filmart were open, I managed to invite a few FINAS representatives to watch the film with me. Really appreciated their support, and was happy to have new friends like them.

Once the screening was over, I started exploring the Filmart, and had the opportunity to meet other film producers and film festival programmers. It took me a while before I realized that I didn't manage to take any photos the day before, so I immediately snapped some quick ones of the impressive-looking booths of the event.

Hong Kong International Film Festival 2008 Opening Ceremony

My second day in Hong Kong began just as uneventfully as the one before. Attempting to get more information from the Film Festival Hospitality Center (it's one of the hotel rooms), I was shocked that it's closed.

Not knowing what to do, I took another walk back to Causeway Bay, and ended up at another traditional Hong Kong restaurant for brunch.

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:

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY Shoot Begins

After having our rehearsal two days ago, the CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY shoot officially began today, on the 26th of Feb.

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY Rehearsal

Despite being sick during the past few days, my short film, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (mentioned the completion of its script last December, and also announced its casting last month), is being fast tracked for a shoot next week.

The protagonists of the script were Mom, Dad and Son, I wrote the script with the child actor, Lim Ming Wei of FLOWER IN THE POCKET, in mind. And also imagined that Dad would look like a certain actor (I'll conceal his identity) who was in a James Lee film last year. To my surprise, the first person who contacted me after I posted up the casting notice was this very person I imagined.

My Prediction For The 80th Oscars

The 80th Academy Awards is mere hours away. Predicting the Oscars was something I've liked doing with Sebastian back in our high school days, but the guy is so pissed off over this year's nominations (he hated frontrunner NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN) that he decides to sulk and boycott it. I'll do it myself. Anyone else who actually gives a rat's ass about the Oscars, or has an opinion about it can post their comments here.

Here we go (my prediction in bold):

Remembering The Day I Met Lydia Sum

I met the late Lydia Sum Din-Ha (her name is also spelt as Lydia Shum) during a 2004 trip in Singapore, months before I went to Perth.

It was an afternoon, and we were eating at the Wo Men De restaurant, famous for its fish head curry. The restaurant was relatively empty that day, I think we were the only ones there.

Then all of a sudden, I heard the restaurant door opening behind me, I didn't turn back, until both my mom reacted.

"It's Lydia Sum." She said.

KURUS Featured on THE STAR (20 Feb 2008)

KURUS is featured on today's The Star.



Props to them for including, well, a photo that has me in it :D

Kung Fu Dunk 功夫灌籃 is a depressing film to watch on Valentine's Day

I don't really mind Jay Chou as an actor.

So far, to me, his films were either surprisingly entertaining (INITIAL D), unintentionally campy (CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER) or unexpectedly affecting (SECRET). But I had my doubts about his newest film KUNG FU DUNK. In fact, I was prepared for the worst.

OMFG! KURUS is showing TONIGHT! (17th of Feb, 2008)

Okay, the NTV7 person probably made a mistake when she told us that KURUS will be showing on the 24th of February.

In fact, based on today's newspapers, KURUS will most probably air at NTV7 on the 17th of Feb, 10:45pm. Yes, that's TONIGHT!!!!!!

So please please PLEASE watch it!!!

Here are the trailers (again):






Tell your friends to watch it, and tell your friends to tell their friends to watch it, and then tell your friend's friends to tell THEIR friends to watch it etc etc.

Two (VERY AWESOME) KURUS Trailers

I've announced yesterday that the telemovie will be airing at NTV7 on the 24th of February, 2008.

So check out the trailers now.


KURUS trailer 1


KURUS trailer 2


Once again, KURUS (English title: Days of the Turquoise Sky) is from Greenlight Pictures, the folks who brought you the hit telemovie CINTA TIGA SEGI and the award-winning THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA (coming to cinemas soon). KURUS is a coming-of-age film that stars newcomer Arshad Zamir, Mislina Mustapha, Nam Ron and Carmen Soo. It is written and directed by Woo Ming Jin. It is produced by Edmund Yeo, Woo Ming Jin, Tomoko Ueda and Aron Koh.

Tags: kurus, days of the turquoise sky, woo ming jin, arshad zamir, carmen soo, mislina mustapha, nam ron, youtube, trailer, video

KURUS will be airing at NTV7 on the 24th of Feb, 10:45pm

Well, folks, I've gotten the confirmed the airing date for KURUS, and it's on the 24th of February, 10:45pm. NTV7.

Yes, that's the telemovie I last produced and couldn't stop talking about in the past few weeks.

Here are links to its press coverage:

• Carmen Soo and KURUS Featured on New Straits Times (11 Feb 2008)
• KURUS Featured on THE SUN (11 Feb 2008)
• Woo Ming Jin and KURUS Featured in New Sunday Times (3 Feb 2008)
• Carmen Soo and KURUS Featured on Metro Harian (2 Feb 2008)

And some miscellaneous links to production stills and others:

• Photos from KURUS Press Conference
• KURUS Production Diary - English Title confirmed. Days of the Turquoise Sky
• KURUS Production Diary - 'Carmen Soo Day 1'
• KURUS Production Diary - 'Carmen Soo Day 2'
• KURUS Production Diary - More production photos

Obviously, I'm going to do another marathon posting of the film until it airs.

The following are some random photos of KURUS. Refresh the page to view different photos.

KURUS (English title: Days of the Turquoise Sky) is from Greenlight Pictures, the folks who brought you the hit telemovie Cinta Tiga Segi. KURUS is a coming-of-age film that stars newcomer Arshad Zamir, Mislina Mustapha, Nam Ron and Carmen Soo. It is written and directed by my mentor, the award-winning Woo Ming Jin.

Tags: kurus, carmen soo, woo ming jin, arshad zamir, mislina mustapha, nam ron, days of the turquoise sky, telemovie, film, ntv7

CJ7 長江七號

By far the most anticipated Chinese film of the year, Stephen Chow's CJ7 had to deal with sky-high expectations since it happened to be his first film since 2004's KUNG FU HUSTLE.

Valentine's Day Melancholy

A MSN conversation between Sebastian and I that occurred in the morning:

Conversation on 'Sweeney Todd' With Lune

I saw Sweeney Todd two weeks ago, since I generally like most musicals, I rather enjoyed the film, though to me, it's a 'good but not great' film. Nonetheless, I have been looping the soundtrack on my computer a lot these days.

The following review is done with my friend, Lune (back in 2005, she and I collaborated in the Blogathon, in which we alternated between her drawing pictures, and me writing a novella based on her drawings, our collaboration was awesome, considering that we conjured all those up in 24 hours), who having seen the musical, ain't that impressed with the film adaptation.

Carmen Soo and KURUS Featured on New Straits Times (11 Feb 2008)

Carmen Soo's experiences during the KURUS shoot is revealed in Sharifah Arfah's interview with her on New Straits Times.

(click pic below and go to 'ALL SIZES' to view larger version)



Or read the interview here.

KURUS, a film which marks my very first producer credit, will be showing on NTV7 soon. It is also making its festival premiere at the Hong Kong International Film Festival next month.

I'll be posting up the trailers one of these days.

Tags: kurus, carmen soo, arshad zamir, woo ming jin, interview, film, days of the turquoise sky

KURUS Featured on THE SUN (11 Feb 2008)

The Sun's Pauline Wong did a feature on KURUS, this telemovie I produced and couldn't stop talking about in the past few weeks.

A Bittersweet Return to Ipoh for Chinese New Year 2008

I'm back from Ipoh, mom's hometown.

Some of you may know that last Dec, my Alzheimer Disease-ridden grandmother was hospitalized after being attacked by two snatch thieves just outside her house.

These are two photos of her in the hospital early January.

BLASTED ASIANS TOO CLEVER

What I Miss About Chinese New Year Eve

Photos by Hugo*

During my childhood, Chinese New Year Eve had always been one of my favourite days of the year.

Because it was so magical.

I could stay up late at night, and watch endless Hong Kong films (mostly those comedies starring Sam and Michael Hui) showing on TV then, I could see my neighbours burning incense and other stuff outside their houses, and most of all, once the clock struck twelve, there would be the deafening sound of fire crackers to signal the beginning of Chinese New Year.

Yet over the years, Chinese New Year Eve had lost its magic to me.

Since I stay up late almost every night... Chinese New Year Eve felt just like any other day.

Since there are less Hong Kong films these days, and most probably I've been watching more films now, most HK films aired on TV are stuff that I've already seen before.

I was going to lament about how firecrackers have been outlawed in the country... but since I was interrupted by the faint sounds of fire crackers while typing this, I guess there's really nothing to lament about.

This year's the Year of the Rat, just like the year I was born. I've already reached the second cycle of the Chinese Zodiac. 12 years ago today, I was in the last year of my primary school.

Has it lost its magic? Or maybe it's just because I'm not a child anymore.

Nonetheless, I'm still looking forward to the angpows.

Happy Chinese New Year and Gong Hei Fatt Choy, everyone.

Tags: happy chinese new year, gong hei fatt choy

Dusting off my Nanowrimo 2005 novel...

Back in Nov 2005, I took part in the National Novel Writing Month 2005 and attempted to write 50 000 words in a month. I succeeded in hitting the word count, but the novel remained unfinished, so somehow, it felt like a hollow victory.

Woo Ming Jin and KURUS Featured in New Sunday Times (3 Feb 2008)

Ming Jin the Mentor and our latest production, KURUS, had been featured in the 3rd of February's New Sunday Times.

Aside from the film itself, this article focuses mostly on our wonderful collaborators, The Limkokwing Film and Television Institute and their involvement in KURUS.



KURUS (English title: Days of the Turquoise Sky), starring Arshad Zamir, Mislina Mustapha, Nam Ron and Carmen Soo, will be coming to NTV7 soon.

It's also going to next month's Hong Kong International Film Festival, which I'm going to attend. (YES!)

Anyway, just a day before this, Carmen Soo and the film, KURUS, were featured in Metro Harian.

Tags: kurus, arshad zamir, woo ming jin, greenlight pictures, days of the turquoise sky, limkokwing, carmen soo, mislina mustapha, telemovie, ntv7, film

Carmen Soo and KURUS Featured on Metro Harian (2 Feb 2008)

This is from yesterday's Metro Harian, a Malay-language newspaper. It's a feature on Carmen Soo and our film, KURUS.

Click the pictures and check out the larger versions if you want to read the feature. I like the title "Victimized by Naughty Students". (Carmen plays a school teacher in the film)

Had to fold the papers to scan them, quite a hassle.





Yes, it's unfortunate that I had this weird expression on my face in that group photo with Carmen (I'm the one in purple, btw).

The telemovie, KURUS, is coming out on NTV7 soon and co-stars Arshad Zamir, Mislina Mustapha and Namron.

I'm heading back to Limkokwing University tomorrow to edit another trailer for it.




KURUS trailer 2


Related entries
Photos from the KURUS press conference on the 28th of Jan.
KURUS Production Diary - 'Carmen Soo Day 1'
KURUS Production Diary - 'Carmen Soo Day 2'
KURUS Production Diary - More production photos

Tags: kurus, carmen soo, arshad zamir, woo ming jin, mislina mustapha, days of the turquoise sky, limkokwing, greenlight pictures

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY by Julian Schnabel

I saw this film in Singapore last week, but just before I entered the cinema, I went to buy Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoir, 'Le Scaphandre et le Papillon' that this film was based on. The book is thin, so it could actually be finished in one sitting (I read sporadically, so it took me two days)

The book was written after Bauby, a former 'Elle' magazine editor, suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed from head to toe, save for his left eye, and he wrote the book by communicating with the blinking of his eye. An amanuensis repeatedly recited a frequency-ordered alphabet (E, L, A, O, I, N, S, D ...), until Bauby blinked to choose the next letter. He died in 1997 just a few days after the book was published.

How I Made A Short Film With Nokia N95 (Part 3)

Go read Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven't already.

This is the final post of my production diary for my latest short 'FROM BHOL LE WITH LOVE', which was used as an opening video for the PC.com Awards Ceremony.

I always win shampoos in lucky draws

Two nights ago, I went to this Happy event held at Cafe Libre with Erna and Suanie. Was an interesting experience cos I finally met Kimberlycun (the original inspiration for the CHINOFIER gadget that appeared in my latest short, From Bhol Le With Love) and KY in person after first knowing of their names and blogs for many years. And then to meet all these fellow Murdoch/KDU alumni, hah, small world.

And here's a photo of me winning a shampoo from the movie trivia. I ended up winning two shampoos that night, I'm happy to know that I don't have to shop for shampoos anymore.


Winning my first shampoo. Wonderful. Smashpop watches from behind.


More wacky photos by the wonderful photographer Louis (damn, dude, update your site) can be found in David's post. Personally, I think my photo is awesome. Any photos of me with the other shampoo?

Posting will resume to normal with Part 3 of my 'How I Made A Short Film With A Nokia N95' series or one of my many overdue film reviews.

Jason Reitman's JUNO

Now that the Oscar nominations have announced, I've been trying my best to catch all films nominated in the Best Picture category via all means since not all are screened in Malaysia.

Photos from KURUS Press Conference

(UPDATED on July 5th, 2016)

The entire film is here

---

I attended the press conference and screening of KURUS yesterday at the KL branch of Limkokwing University. Not much to say for now, just some photos to share.

How I Made A Short Film With Nokia N95 (Part 2)

Part 1 is here.

14th of January, 2008. Arriving at the location of the shoot, which was the REACH PUBLISHING office, home of the PC.COM Magazine, I started surveying the office space, finding the appropriate place to shoot the video.

Not an easy task since it was still a normal work day for the REACH PUBLISHING employees.

"I'm going to be your one-woman crew." Erna announced, hauling a bag of props that I've asked her to buy for me. I examined the contents, ensuring everything I needed was there.

Chewxy's WEB OF LIES Premiere Party

Currently typing this from my hotel in Singapore, hence the lack of updates. Arrived on Friday, returning today. Despite initial misgivings and the fact that I come here often, two nights in Singapore just ain't enough! (Nonetheless, I still managed to buy many books!)

A night before I went to Singapore, Chewxy threw a premiere party for his debut (live-action) short film, WEB OF LIES that he made last July before leaving for Australia. I'm still credited as the producer of this 25-minute short film despite the fact that I was only involved in its preproduction (helping Chewxy with his auditions and rehearsals). After that, I experienced some schedule clashing as preproduction of the telemovie CINTA TIGA SEGI (recently broadcasted on NTV7) started just when Chewxy and co begun their 3-day marathon shoot.

RIP Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger (1979-2008)


When I woke up early this morning, I saw that my MSN window was flashing with Sebastian's message. (My laptop is placed on my bed beside me most of the time when I sleep)

Did you hear?

I was one of the first to read about the news on Cinematical.

Groggily, I typed 'yes', assuming that he was referring to the announcement of the Oscar nominations, but swiftly, I clicked on my Firefox live bookmark to see the Cinematical RSS feed.

And knew immediately that he was referring to Heath Ledger's sudden death, either of accidental overdose or suicide.

How I Made A Short Film With Nokia N95 (Part 1)

This is a chronicle of the video I made for the PC.com Magazine Awards Night held last Friday at KL Tower.

CLOVERFIELD by Matt Reeves

Here we go, the first potential Hollywood blockbuster hit of 2008.

Cloverfield, thanks to viral marketing, and also having its intriguing trailer placed before last year's Transformers in US theaters, had swiftly became a much-anticipated film for many (myself included).

First Time At KL Tower In 10 Years To Attend the 8th PC.com Product Awards Night

The last time I visited KL Tower was nearly 10 years ago, for my 14th birthday. Dinner with family and my best fat buddy. We dined at the revolving restaurant, it was a magical night for the atmosphere and joy, but because the food weren't spectacular, I never really thought of going back. So I didn't.

Making the opening video for PC.com Awards Night

Sorry for the lack of updates.

Been making the opening video for this Friday's PC.COM Magazine Awards Night. Shot it on Monday and Tuesday and in the midst of editing it.

Posting will resume to normal when I think I'm free enough. And I might post the video on Youtube if it's a hit.

For now, just wish me luck.

[OPEN THREAD] Cinta Tiga Segi telemovie

Open thread for the telemovie, CINTA TIGA SEGI. Leave your comments, complaints, compliments, questions below.

Why Watch tonight's CINTA TIGA SEGI: One third of it went to major international film festivals. You view it for free.

One of the three segments of tonight's telemovie, CINTA TIGA SEGI, was extracted and turned into a short film called BLUE ROOF (which I've mentioned before).

BLUE ROOF had its world premiere at last year's PUSAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, the largest film festival in Asia, and will also be showing at the ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL end of this month. (... along with a couple of film festivals that I will announce in the near future)

Aside from that, the short film will screen at the Malaysian Shorts in HELP UNIVERSITY on the 21st of January.



However, CINTA TIGA SEGI will provide a definite, conclusive ending for BLUE ROOF that wasn't available in the actual short film. So even if you've seen the short film, you STILL need to catch this film, tonight on NTV7, 10:45pm.

(UPDATED 14th of March, 2016)

Awesome Photo Stills from CINTA TIGA SEGI, An Important TV Event In Malaysia!

The stills from CINTA TIGA SEGI are very awesome. This upcoming TV movie stars Juliana Ibrahim, Gambit Saifullah, Isma Husein, Chew Kinwah, Razif Hashim, Azman Hassan.

CINTA TIGA SEGI is airing on NTV7 at 10:45pm this Sunday

A major TV event.

Goodbye, Zhao Lao Shi

I was at the Ipoh Specialist Centre visiting my grandmother (still recovering from the injury she suffered after an attack by snatch thieves) last night when I received a surprise phone call from an old classmate bearing bad news.

Casting For 'CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY' Begins

Knew that I have to kick things into gear as soon as possible if I really wanted my new short film, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY to happen, so I've begun my attempts of casting.

Made a phone call to Nikki of Da Huang last night pleading for help to spread the news about the casting, and then posted a notice at Kakiseni.com and the Malaysian Cinema mailing list this morning. Here's the notice:

Discussing the "Gone Baby Gone" Ending

GONE BABY GONE is Ben Affleck's directorial debut.

As an actor, his career decisions have left many shaking heads in disapproval. Until this very day, the mere mention of PEARL HARBOUR would make me grimace in disgust, and I still have frustrating high school memories of classmates and schoolmates telling me that 'the film wasn't so bad, hee hee hee', or Sebastian claiming that Pearl Harbor would have been nominated for Best Pic Oscar if it weren't for 9/11. I wanted to scream "AAAAAAAARGH! WHAT'S SO [EXPLETIVE CENSORED] GOOD ABOUT THE [EXPLETIVE CENSORED] FILM? ARE YOU [EXPLETIVE CENSORED] KIDDING THE [EXPLETIVE CENSORED] OUT OF ME?", but I was much mellower then, so I merely suffered from teenage angst, nothing more.

10 Most-viewed Posts of 2007

Happy new year, you all. Here are the top ten most-viewed posts of 2007.

My Grandmother's Love

Early in the morning of 29th of December 2007 at Ipoh, an elderly woman was attacked by two snatch thieves trying to take away her handbag. It happened only a few blocks away from her own house as she was returning from her daily gathering with friends.

There was a struggle.

The leather bag was ripped apart, revealing nothing inside. The two snatch thieves sped off in their motorbike, the woman fell facefirst onto the ground.

An Indian woman and her brother were nearby and they helped her up, the old woman's nose was already bleeding profusely and semi-conscious. Another woman recognized her and hurriedly, the trio brought the old woman back home to the son and daughter-in-law she is staying with.

That old woman was my grandmother.

Joe Wright's ATONEMENT

I didn't know what to expect from ATONEMENT. The film had received mostly glowing reviews and is one of the favourites to get a Best Picture nomination in next year's Oscars, but I had been worried that it would be another one of those stuffy and boring period romances filled with sheer pretentiousness and self-importance that would leave me wondering what all the fuss was about.

Ten Things About Men and Women

1. SizeMen: Big things excite you.
Big bossoms, big curves, big cars, big money, big bodily appendages … and if I continue I would have men wanking to this post.
Women: Tiny things become you.
Fuelled by our intemperate desire to look thin, we either starve or surgically re-sculpture ours bodies. Hearing people associate us with thinness, even morbid remarks like, ‘You’re so thin … do you have cancer?’ fill our hearts with joy.

2. Sex
Men: You feel tired after ejaculation.
Seriously. Anyone care to explain this?! But if it’s too scientific, I’ll probably fall asleep so don’t bother.
Women: You feel tired … of having to pretend you had as much fun as he did.
What’s the deal? We CAN’T enjoy sex as much as men, our orgasm mailbox are emptier than men’s and complicated sex positions always involve us doing all the onerous work. =(

3. AppealMen: Boobs. Ass. Legs.
You find it socially acceptable to demand for big breasts but not at all to have your manhood crushed by girls who find that your penis doesn’t measure up.
Women: Personality. Face.
You find it socially acceptable to demand for adequately shaped and sized penis because they contribute almost completely to pleasure during sex while boobs play a 50% role.

My PC.com column gives some basic tips on digital filmmaking

A while ago, Erna asked me to write a column about digital filmmaking for the December 2007 issue of PC.com magazine.

Conversation on 'National Treasure: Book of Secrets' with Sebastian

The following review of NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS by Sebastian and I contains lots of spoilers.

Read it only if you have seen the film.

Or you can actually choose to read the review first and not wasting your time with the film.

KURUS Production Diary - More production photos

We've finally completed the rough cut version of KURUS (English title: DAYS OF THE TURQUOISE SKY) last week. When and where will the film make its world premiere remains a mystery, it could be a foreign film festival we submitted the film to, or it could local TV channel NTV7 itself.

Whenever or whatever it is, I will keep everyone informed. You can read about the synopsis of the film I posted last month.

Now, more production photos:

Karei-naru Ichizoku (The Wealthy Family) 華麗なる一族

So yeah, I just completed another Jdorama marathon, this time for the high-profile TBS show, Karei-naru Ichizoku 華麗なる一族. Which, I think, is made to commemorate the station's 55th anniversary.

I AM LEGEND starring Will Smith

I AM LEGEND is NOT a film you've never seen before. While watching it, I am reminded of 28 DAYS LATER and 28 WEEKS LATER, or the more recent 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, and a bit of CASTAWAY (Will Smith DID cite Tom Hanks' performance as an influence). After all, the film IS about the last man on Earth facing vampires who were actually humans infected by virus.

My mom has an iPhone!!

I was in the middle of my beauty nap just now when I was awakened by mom and dad's conversation. Mom was showing dad a 'new little gadget' where 'she can check emails from her Hotmail account' and 'also many other things'.

Umberto Eco - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

Compared to previous years, I don't think I've been able to read as much as before, some books took me months to finish (Neal Stephenson's CRYPTONOMICON, which I admired, but didn't think was as good as SNOW CRASH), while some took me only two or three days (David Mitchell's GHOSTWRITTEN, awesome book) or mere hours (Haruki Murakami's AFTER DARK, which I mentioned here).

So I felt some sense of accomplishment after actually completing Hemingway's SUN ALSO RISES and Umberto Eco's THE MYSTERIOUS FLAME OF QUEEN LOANA in consecutive days last week. (I was reading the latter first, but felt that it was too dense, so borrowed the lighter SUN ALSO RISES from Ming Jin to read instead)

(Note that this is not really a review, but more of me chronicling some thoughts while reading the book.)



THE MYSTERIOUS FLAME OF QUEEN LOANA is said to be Umberto Eco's last novel, and was the second novel I read from the Italian writer (THE NAME OF THE ROSE was my first).

A moment frozen forever in time.

The 'comic strip' above comes from a scene in my short film, GIRL DISCONNECTED. The lines of dialogue between the two characters, Wiler (played by Justin, yes, guestblogger Justin) and Maya (played by Sarah Corbyn) never actually ended up in the final version of the film even though we shot the scene with the actors saying them. Thus the scene was more open-ended.

Tags: webcomic, girl disconnected, short film, filmmaking

Jet Li is really good in Peter Chan's THE WARLORDS 投名状

Peter Chan Ho-Sun is one of the Hong Kong directors I rather admire. Many of his works in the 90s are considered classics today, namely COMRADES: ALMOST A LOVE STORY and HE'S A WOMAN, SHE'S A MAN and his 1993 time-travelling film that starred two Tony Leungs, HE AIN'T HEAVY, HE'S MY FATHER. Being one of the co-founders of the UNITED FILMMAKERS ORGANIZATION (UFO), he's also responsible for many of the finest commercially and critically successful Hong Kong films in the 90s as producer.

H2 ~ Kimi to itahibi 君といた日々(J-Dorama)

I'm still addicted to Japanese TV dorama. The latest marathon I had was 2005's H2~KIMI TO ITAHIBI, a baseball-themed romance adapted from the classic manga by Mitsuru Adachi.

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY! My first screenplay in 18 months.

After completing my new short film screenplay, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY yesterday, I realized in quiet horror that it is actually my first screenplay in 18 MONTHS. It's unbelievable that the last time I've ever completed a script (that's GIRL DISCONNECTED) was that long ago!

My writer's block had lasted fairly long. What caused this drought? Did I run out of ideas? Or was I merely demotivated? To take THAT LONG to actually write a script for a short film is a little sad.

THE GOLDEN COMPASS film adaptation

Earlier this year, THE GOLDEN COMPASS was one of my most anticipated movies, I've in fact waited for it ever since the film was first announced years ago. I read the book when I was 12, and the rest of the trilogy when I was 20. I can say that Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy is one of my favourite fantasy trilogies of all-time.

But as the film's release date got nearer, it started getting horrible reviews, averaging a measly 43% at Rotten Tomatoes, and then Sebastian told me last night that it sucked. Maybe because of them, I ended up entering the cinemas this morning with zero expectations, fantasy films of the past two years hadn't been that good anyway. ERAGON and STARDUST were stinkers.

I don't remember the GOLDEN COMPASS book (I bought mine in UK, so it was called NORTHERN LIGHTS instead. Just like 'HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE' vs 'HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE', UK and US have different titles for the book) since I read it eleven years ago, so I could only remember certain scenes vaguely.

Which is a good thing, since I can watch the film with fresh eyes, without the burden of subconsciously comparing it to its source material.

Chris Marker's La Jetée is awesome!

La Jetée is a short film from the French New Wave by Chris Marker. It's a sci-fi film told entirely via voiceover narration and consists only of still photos. I watched it on DVD earlier this evening with Ming Jin and was definitely mesmerized and inspired.

BEOWULF is okay, but I miss Robert Zemeckis' live-action films

BEOWULF is a marginally entertaining film. Not as mindblowingly awesome as I hoped, nor as mindnumbingly shitty as I feared. The well-timed Austinpowersism (the term comes from Roger Ebert, which means "putting things in the foreground to keep you from seeing the family jewels") is funny.

But I don't think my life will be any different whether I've seen the film or not.

Miki Nakatani's tour-de-force performance in Memories of Matsuko 嫌われ松子の一生

I just finished watching MEMORIES OF MATSUKO on DVD earlier this morning (was prompted to do it after reading Grady Hendrix's gripes about the film's lack of US distribution).

And all I can say is...

Attending the 25th Torino Film Festival!

Hi,
This is the filmmaker Woo Ming Jin, guest blogging for swifty. I just returned from the Torino Film Festival in Turin, Italy where my film 'THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA' was in the competition lineup, or as the festival calls it the 'Torino 25', since this is the festival's 25th yr, but its first under the Italian director Nanni Moretti, a director whose films i'd watch when i was a film student and who won the Palme d'Or in Cannes some years back.

Mad Detective 神探

In MAD DETECTIVE, the second film I saw yesterday, my director hero, Johnnie To reunites with co-director Wai Ka Fai and Lau Ching Wan in a cop thriller that sort of revisits genre conventions and previous Johnnie To/ Milkyway Image films.

This film has some of the 'missing gun' plot we saw in PTU (2003), and a quirky misunderstood tragic hero who sees things that others cannot see like RUNNING ON KARMA (2003), insane shootouts in a room of mirrors like THE LONGEST NITE (1998), and some nihilism of the ELECTION films (2005 and 2006). But instead of feeling that the filmmakers were recycling their tricks ala John Woo, the original concept is executed so flawlessly that it's totally mindblowing and compelling to watch.

More visual wizardry from Julie Taymor in ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (the soundtrack's good too)

Seriously, this will not be a very in-depth film review. My lack of familiarity with all Beatles' songs meant that I can only enjoy and judge the film as any other musicals when watching ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. The emotional depth of which Beatles song being used in the film is mostly lost to me, I think.

KURUS Production Diary - Sleepless night of editing

29th of November. I have reached the fourth day of post-production for the film, KURUS. The past three days were spent on editing its rough cut, while today's spent on subtitling. I can only work on this until tomorrow afternoon, then I'll have to submit this film to the Rotterdam Film Festival.

ENCHANTED

Back in Sunday, I had a choice between ENCHANTED and HITMAN, and I chose the former instead. A normal angstful hot-blooded male would've gone for the latter, since ENCHANTED seems more like a Disney chick flick for little girls. But hey, while I don't usually let film critics sway my film choices, I still feel that watching the 93% ENCHANTED would be a much better bet than the 11% HITMAN, which seemed to have a long history of problems during its production.

Married For A Quarter Of A Century

28th of November, today's the 25th Wedding Anniversary of my parents. As usual, they will celebrate this in a low-key manner with relatively little fanfare tonight. This year, like every year, will be a nice little family dinner. Well darn, let's hope we'll throw something bigger during the 50th Anniversary.

Hooray, I have a cameo role in a NTV7 telemovie

KERAMAT, a telemovie directed by Kannan Thiagarajan that I was involved in back in April will be aired tonight on NTV7 at the ungodly hour of 10:45pm.

If you want to see me in my first screen acting role as the boss of a car repair center, please don't miss my cameo appearance during the first 15 minutes of the film and laugh at my god-awful Malay-speaking skills! (I'm dressed in a grey T-shirt)

Recent Pusan Film Festival award-winning filmmaker Liew Seng Tat and documentary filmmaker/ SURF Magazine writer Zan Azlee also have cameos in this film.

... I served as assistant director for the film too.

KURUS Production Diary - 'Carmen Soo Day 2'

By the time I was writing this post, I've already completed the shoot for KURUS (24th of November, one day ahead of schedule) and gone home. I'm going to start work on the editing rather soon.

Before I move on, here are more photos from 'Carmen Soo Day 1' (20th of Nov) that was taken with a digital SLR:

KURUS Production Diary - 'Carmen Soo Day 1'

(Sorry about the lack of updates in the past few days, am usually too tired to do anything with the blog when in the middle of a production shoot, tried to write this post two days ago but always ended up falling asleep halfway through it)

Carmen Soo didn't confirm her attachment to the KURUS film as Miss Carol until three days before the shoot. Miss Carol is an English teacher in protagonist Ali's class, and also the object of Ali's crush.

Due to her tight schedule, we can only have her for two days of the shoot. And when working out a shooting schedule for the film, we came to dub these 2 days the 'Carmen Soo days', meaning that we had to quickly push ourselves to finish her scenes. No easy feat, considering her scenes were rather complex to shoot.

Just a few photos of the first Carmen Soo day (20/11/07):

17th of November. Mom's Birthday. A Memorable Day!

17th of November is my mother's birthday. I haven't celebrated birthday with her for three years since my days in Perth. As the KURUS shoot had begun on the 16th, and I'm now living at Ming Jin's place (it makes traveling to Semenyih easier), I'd expected this year to be no different, and that the streak would extend to four years.

I received a SMS from my sister asking me to drop by for a surprise party on the night of my mom's birthday cos' she had bought mom a cake.

So I did, taking the long 45-min train ride home from Bangi, dropping a line saying that I want to have dinner to celebrate mom's birthday. The train ride was made bearable thanks to the company of Mislina (yes, the actress Mislina Mustapha, she has a major role in KURUS. plays Mukhsin's aunt in MUKHSIN, and plays Ayu's mom in FLOWER IN THE POCKET. Awesome actress!)

My little sister completely engineered and masterminded this surprise party for mom, she went off to buy the birthday cake with dad a day earlier, and then ensured that everyone who were to visit my mom would not bring any birthday cakes.

I don't think I've done anything similar all these years. For me, I remembered giving presents, flowers, dinner, but not doing something as simple as buying a birthday cake in secret and then take it out for my mom, singing loudly 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY'.

Maybe all these years during my absence, my sister had been doing all these. Or maybe this was the first time she had done it. I didn't ask. There was no need to.

First time, fourth time, it doesn't really matter. It was a wonderful night.

Because we had 'guests'.

Annoyed By Ex-High Schoolmates Who Work In The Same Industry (Part 2)

This is the continuation of what I chronicled in my last post where an ex-schoolmate who works in a website owned by a mega media corporation had earned my ire.

I am now 3 hours away from the shooting of KURUS (English title: DAYS OF THE TURQUOISE SKY), we have employed the services of a wonderful actress whose name I shall not divulge (for now) but she was nice enough to agree to appear in the film just a day after finishing a rather exhausting musical. Being the vindictive bastard I was, I called my ex-schoolmate shortly after the confirmation of her participation yesterday (yes, she confirmed her participation 3 days before the shoot begins!) because I initially requested for people of his team to cover the KURUS shoot if possible (to do a 'making of' project), and he asked me to call him only if she is truly attached to the project.

Conversation below (I don't think there's any need to point out who is who) It's originally in Mandarin, and happened in rapid pace:

Annoyed By Ex-High Schoolmates Who Work In The Same Industry

(The 'industry' referred in the title is the media industry, which includes film, tv, new media etc.)

A couple of weeks ago, I managed to run into two people from my former high school during separate occasions, one works now in a New Media company, the other works in a video-sharing site owned by a huge corporation that owns a couple of television channels. I'm not going to name names.

Through a stroke of coincidence, I was suddenly contacted by both for similar reasons, they were asking for both my short films and Greenlight Pictures' (which are Ming Jin's). The former to provide mobile phones as a platform to exhibit these short films, the latter to offer the website he's working on as a platform to exhibit these short films.

So I had an appointment with the one who works in the new media company at Starbucks.

... and was subjected to wait for nearly 45 minutes before she arrived, something that would have annoyed me less if she weren't the one who chose the appointment time. I sat and waited, nearly emptying my ice-blended mocha, taking the opportunity to start writing notes for a short film I intend to work on.

KURUS Production Diary - English Title Confirmed. DAYS OF THE TURQUOISE SKY

Photos taken at Semenyih from the second location scouting last week, it's the same pond from this entry, but this time, I use an actual camera instead of my mobile phone for photographing:

Rainbow Song 虹の女神 by Naoto Kumazawa, written and produced by Shunji Iwai

There's only one reason why I immediately wanted to see this film when I saw its poster in Taiwan.

VIDEO: CONTROVERSY! Wiping butt with Malay textbook and censored little puppy in 'Flower In The Pocket'

While watching Seng Tat's Flower In The Pocket at its press screening on Wednesday, what stood out to me were two censored scenes in the film.

In The Middle Of The Road, A Taxi Driver Died.

I just had dinner with Dad and Uncle Dan, dad's classmate who had just returned briefly from San Franciso. After dinner, we had to send Uncle Dan home.

On our way to Cheras, while waiting for the traffic light, I saw a motorcyclist walking towards a taxi in the middle of the road.

The traffic light had turned green, the other cars were moving slowly, but the taxi didn't move from its place.

"Hey, bro, wake up!" The motorcyclist yelled in Malay.

The taxi driver, a middle-aged Indian man, didn't react. His eyes were closed, his mouth agape and his head slumped forward.

The motorcyclist shook the driver's shoulder, still yelling, but to no avail.

Is he unconscious or dead? Uncle Dan and dad looked with concern.

But the cars never stopped moving, and gradually, the motorcyclist, the taxi driver and the taxi were left behind, disappearing from my sight and into the night.

Liew Seng Tat's Flower In The Pocket 口袋里的花

I have posted about Seng Tat's victory for FLOWER IN THE POCKET at the PUSAN FILM FESTIVAL last month, and I finally got to catch the film at its press screening yesterday. It's hard to review a film properly when you know the filmmaker personally, lauding it too much will make it seem as if you're being nice to a friend, dissing it will mean that you are self-consciously trying to avoid the former.

Had the desks and chairs of primary schools always been so small?

Tried to secure a primary school in Semenyih for the KURUS shoot yesterday.

Tokyo Friends: The Movie starring Ai Otsuka and Eita

TOKYO FRIENDS: THE MOVIE is best enjoyed by two groups of people:

In The Train, The Man In A Wheelchair

After an entire day spent on another production meeting, I and a friend of mine took the KTM commuter train home.

KURUS Production Diary - What Is This Film About?

Had the first major production meeting for my upcoming project, KURUS at Starbucks in The Curve yesterday.

Much had occurred with the production while I was away in Taiwan for a week. Lim Kok Wing University had offered their assistance by providing us some crew members, most invaluable of all, a line producer, Joanne Soong, to help out with the location hunting and the like (definitely makes my job much easier now!). We have also secured the services of Aaron Chung (click his name to read Hassan Muthalib's glowing article about him at Criticine.com) for cinematographer. And Kannan (director of March's telemovie I served as assistant director for) had jumped onboard too, maybe as the sound guy, I think.

(Ming Jin, Joanna, Aaron, Kannan and I were the ones present at the meeting)

Casted the lead role, acquired most of the locations, Mentor Ming Jing had completed the script as well.

KURUS is supposedly a telemovie made for NTV7, its original premise was like Karate Kid meets Million Dollar Baby meets Rocky meets whatever teenage coming-of-age tale you've seen. An often bullied skinny boy decided to learn boxing from a cleaner lady just so he could dish out some punishment upon his tormentors. Cleaner lady was a disgraced former female boxing champion!

Bullet and Brain 神枪手与智多星

I just came back from seeing this Hong Kong movie, which opened in Malaysia today, two weeks before its scheduled release in its own country. I have NOT heard of this movie at all until I saw its contest on Star Newspaper this morning.

Acting Auditions Are Guilt Trips!

(Note: this post has nothing to do with the Takashi Miike movie, Audition)

I've held a few auditions for several occasions, from my own short films last year (VERTICAL DISTANCE and GIRL DISCONNECTED) to the two tv movie productions I'm involved in this year, I find auditions rather exciting but sometimes frustrating.

Last Day In Taipei. Tried the Stinky Tofu!

It's my last night in Taipei, will be taking the morning flight back to Malaysia in a couple of hours.

One of the most distinctive features of the city, to me, is the unbearable odour of stinky tofu emitted from their many stalls around Taipei. They smell like a combination of sewers and rotting carcasses, I cannot help but feel all puked up whenever I walk past one of these stalls.

However, being my last day in the country, I wanted to go home and tell everyone that I'm gutsy enough to try out the infamous stinky tofu, so I decided gather my courage and try one at a roadside stall:

Conversation on John Carney's 'ONCE' with Sebastian

A MSN conversation I had with Sebastian:

Shilin Night Market and Pirated DVDs

Photos I took of the Taipei Train Station during the day, along with the buildings nearby: