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Monday, July 02, 2012

A movie leading to a dream leading to an imagined movie...

Last night, he started to watch a film by one of his favourite Hong Kong directors, Johnnie To. It had nothing to do with the fact that it was Hong Kong's 15th anniversary handover, it just happened that he wanted to watch a familiar Hong Kong film with familiar Hong Kong actors. The film, ROMANCING IN THIN AIR, was a romantic drama with familiar trappings, part-NOTTING HILL, part-UPSIDE OF ANGER (he didn't know he could still remember this film), part-anything Nicholas Sparks.

Sunday, July 01, 2012

That's how the first half of 2012 ended. Lovely.

The second half of 2012 sort of sneaked up on me. As I was walking home this morning at 4am, I was struck by how pink the sky was. The first rays of the sun were lighting up the sky.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Interview with me on the Pia International Film Festival website

This Japanese interview with me was done last November and had been posted on the PIA International Film Festival website.

I feel bad that I am posting old news, I never liked clinging to past glories. But for the sake of preservation, and just in case I cannot find the interview anymore, at least I will have records of it here.

7 years ago, some guy wrote a novella in 24 hours

In August 2005, I participated in something called Blogathon, a 24-hour blogging marathon for charity. In the span of 24 hours, participants had to write a new post every 30 minutes. For a pre-Twitter/ Facebook era, that was quite a difficult thing to do.

Friday, June 29, 2012

The Films of Edward Yang

The Taiwanese director Edward Yang had been one of my biggest influences.

He died of cancer at the age of 60 exactly 5 years ago, on the 29th of June, 2007.

A few filmmaker friends of mine like Ying Liang and Eva Tang had posted the video below on Facebook to mark this occasion.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Rest In Peace, Nora Ephron




Nora Ephron


I was slightly saddened when I learned of screenwriter director Nora Ephron's passing yesterday right after I woke up. She had been ill with leukemia for a while.

As you may have noticed from my blog posts this year. Often when a filmmaker dies, I find myself pondering the body of work that they have left, and my memories of them.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA film series were cinematic masterpieces

It all happened yesterday evening, when two friends of mine were reliving memories of old Jet Li films on Youtube.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

BUDDYZ TV Spots (a TV series of 5-minute episodes I directed for Astro Ria)

The kombi van in BUDDYZ is also an important character


I mentioned about BUDDYZ last month, it's a Malay TV series of 5-minute episodes that I directed back in March starring Alif Satar, Syed Ali, Erin Malek and Elliza Razak, with special guest appearances by Shaheizy Sam (the guy pretty much appeared in almost every single episode as a different character).

Although I worked very closely with my editor and producers for the post-production (I returned to Tokyo right after the shoot, so had to do everything via email or Twitter), I haven't watched the finished work. So it was quite interesting to monitor what viewers thought of the series via Twitter. Was very flattered to see an increasing amount of tweets for the show, and that many of them had nice things to say about it. (obviously, BUDDYZ is a clear departure from the melancholic and "arthouse" films that I've always been making).

The final 16th episode is airing on TV tonight at 8:55pm (with repeats at 11pm)

UPDATED: Adding a playlist featuring both the first and second seasons of Buddyz

Sunday, June 17, 2012

10 great Father's Day films that you might not have seen

Today is Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, dad. Dad is going to be at a TV shoot today, accompanied by Mom and my sister, it's going to be a good one. (my dad is a judge in a AMERICAN IDOL-like Chinese singing show, however, unlike idol, the contestants are restricted to 45 and above. Quite a popular show that recently turned my dad into a celebrity of sorts)

Since my lifelong love for cinema was influenced by Dad, and I would never been a filmmaker if he were indifferent towards films, I think it's fitting that I try to commemorate this day by listing out a number of great Father's Day films that you might not have seen (I know I haven't).

To make things simpler for me, I'm restricting this list to only Asian films. (I'll do another list if this goes well, haha)

Thursday, June 07, 2012

Discovering the world of radio plays (and dramas)


It all started from a phone conversation with Maiko the Producer (she produced my short films "Kingyo" and "Exhalation") a few weeks ago. She had been working at NHK Osaka for the past two years, earlier this year she was involved in the hit morning drama "CARNATION" as an assistant director.

She asked whether I wanted to try my hand in writing a radio drama. It was an interesting preposition. A storytelling medium I was entirely unfamiliar with, but seemingly filled with possibilities.

The first thing that came to my mind was, of course, Orson Welles' famous 1938 WARS OF THE WORLD radio drama, believed to be probably the most famous radio drama of all time.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Theo Angelopoulos mini-retrospective and documentary

Last week, just a day before I headed off to Ningbo China for a short trip over the weekend, I walked past the nearby arthouse theater Waseda Shochiku and paused when I noticed that they were screening three Theo Angelopoulos films in a span of two weeks.

mini Theo Angelopoulos retrospective held in Waseda Shochiku


The films were:

Monday, May 14, 2012

Why film festivals matter to me

(UPDATED: This blog post was initially a repost of an email on the Malaysian Cinema mailing list from Venice Film Festival programmer Paolo Bertolin asking for the means to contact FINAS (the National Film Development Corporation of Malaysia). Was hoping that posting this in public would help him get a reply.

He got it, problem solved, so as per his request, I'll remove his email exchanges in the mailing list. And expand more on my last few paragraphs regarding my thoughts about film festivals. It's sort of a love letter for film festivals, perhaps.)


Thursday, May 10, 2012

Ying Liang, James Cameron, The New Yorker

I wrote about Ying Liang's horrifying situation with the Chinese authorities a few days ago, the responses were surprising. Although many of our friends in the circle were already aware of the situation and had communicated with him on Facebook, other friends of mine were very nice to help spread the news around on Twitter and Facebook. This news was picked up by Richard Brody of The New Yorker.

Brody had written in the magazine about Ying Liang's previous films, which, to tell you the truth, I haven't really seen. (I'll rectify that soon), and in his blog post, Brody had many nice things to say about Ying Liang's films.

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Saturday, May 05, 2012

BUDDYZ on Astro Ria

The kombi van in BUDDYZ is also an important character


BUDDYZ is a series of 5-minute minisodes on the Astro Ria channel presented by Digi. It stars Alif Satar, Syed Ali, Erin Malek and Elliza Razak, with special appearances by Shaheizy Sam.

I actually directed it. (You might remember back in March that I mentioned about directing a Malay TV series. Yes, it does look rather different from my usual output) The series finally came out on Tuesday (1st of May), followed by the second episode on Thursday (2nd of May).

Sadly, being in Japan, I can't really watch any of them.

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

When what you desire in life bleeds into video games...

A week ago, after having a rough cut of my latest short film shown to financiers and clients, I decided to take a sabbatical. (Usually, after a film shoot, I would immediately jump into putting the footage together, editing them, seeing whether what I got had been what I've envisioned, or, perhaps I got something better than I hoped. But once I'm done with a first rough cut, I would for myself to adhere to usual industry beliefs, and to take a break from the footage so that I could come back to it with fresh eyes, approaching the materials with much more objectivity and distance. Because of the freeform improvisational nature of my usual filmmaking methods, I tend to "make discoveries" of my films through post-production)

Therefore, during this break, I intended to just do some researching, finding inspiration from other films regarding the editing, finishing up a book that I was reading (currently reading: Italo Calvino's THE BARON IN THE TREES), follow the NBA Playoffs.

Oh, and maybe play a game...

So I installed SKYRIM.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Film directing as a profession does not really exist

I saw this posted on Facebook by the Chinese filmmaker Ying Liang. He was passing to his students words of wisdom from his own teacher, Professor Si-Tu Zhao Dun.



The whole thing is in Chinese, so it's actually better if you can read it in its original language as my translation will be pretty shaky:

Here's the original:

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Instagram photos of the week: End of cherry blossom season

Been busy with the post-production of my new film, and also dealing with a couple of deadlines. So I'll just entertain this very silent blog with more stunningly beautiful photos that I uploaded on Instagram during the past week.

The photos I posted had one recurring theme, the end of the much-loved cherry blossom season in Japan. Usually it's signaled by some heavy rain.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Thoughts on 31st Hong Kong Film Awards / Ode to Lau Ching Wan

The 31st Hong Kong Film Awards was held on Sunday night. I was following the results on Facebook and Twitter because I didn't know where else can I catch a live telecast of it in Japan.

A SIMPLE LIFE by Ann Hui ended up as the big winner of the night, winning Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay and probably a few others I didn't count.

I haven't seen it, so there's not much I can say.

But I ended up writing my thoughts about each of the acting award winners on Facebook, which I'm going to share here. (and I will expand on what I wrote if I can)

Thursday, April 12, 2012

My (stunningly beautiful, of course) Instagram photos of the week

The past week had been pretty busy for me. I was "supervising" the post-production of the TV thing that I shot in Malaysia last month (when I said supervising, I pretty much meant "jumping into the whole damn thing and doing a lot of re-editing myself), while simultaneously doing the pre-production for a short film (that I'm shooting right now).

Anyway, you might notice that numerous photos I've posted on this page were from Instagram, a service I rather liked because of the way it could enhance my iPhone photos. Everyone's talking about it now since it got acquired by Facebook for a measly sum of $1 billion dollars, I also thought that the photos I took had been increasingly awesome, so I'm sharing the ones that I have taken in the past week.

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Happy 80th birthday, Andrei Tarkovsky

I was quite surprised when Radoslav Sharapanov left a comment on my recent Andrei Tarkovsky Facebook post that today is actually Tarkovsky's birthday.


Andrei Tarkovsky


Tarkovsky died in 1986 at the relatively young age of 54, when I was only 2. He would have been 80 years old this year. Same age as my grandmother.

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Experiencing Japan's strongest storm since 1959

3rd of April 2012. It's been 4 years and 1 day since I first moved to Tokyo.

This special event was marked by Japan's strongest storm since 1959.

Sunday, April 01, 2012

Remembering Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui


During the last few hours, I was wondering why everyone's suddenly posting photos and videos of Leslie Cheung on Facebook. An internet meme I knew nothing about?

And then I remembered that he died on the 1st of April, 9 years ago.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Sharing some episodes of ROAD TO AFA that I directed

This is very late, since the Asian Film Awards ended two weeks ago. So you probably already knew that the Oscar-winning A SEPARATION was the night's major winner. (full results here)

But I haven't been updating this blog much these days, so please bear with me.

You might remember that I mentioned directing a series of interviews with a few major Japanese film figures last month while suffering from a hideous food poisoning as part of the ROAD TO AFA (Asian Film Awards) program hosted by Janet Hsieh. A month earlier, in January, I was in Taipei for these interviews.

I didn't exactly blog about my Taipei escapades, so I'll post up some of my old tweets related to it.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Some nice scenery during my TV shoot

I've been doing my TV shoot since the 10th of March (hence the lack of updates).

The majority of the shoot took place in Sekinchan. This marked my 4th shoot in that location, from my short film LOVE SUICIDES in 2008, to Woo Ming Jin's WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER (which I produced) in 2009, to last year's LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER.

It's unsurprising that this region had became quite a popular place for film and TV shoots, the scenery had often been stunning.

These are some of the sights I saw early in the morning, just before camera rolled.

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

6th of March, 2012. Happy birthday to me!

Forty-five minutes ago, the clock struck 12, I have been bombarded with Facebook and Twitter birthday wishes from friends, family, acquaintances, people I've never met, film people, former primary school friends, former secondary school friends, former university friends, frenemies and the like. Thanks, folks. It's been a colorful life.

A year ago today, I was in Tokyo, spending the entire day in the editing room, editing a little half-finished short film called LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER. I met a few friends who dropped by, had a meeting with my producer Yuiko, and then at night, I left for the airport, and prepared to fly to Kuala Lumpur... I almost lost my computer bag.

A year has passed. The difference is that I'm now spending my birthday in Malaysia.

But at this very moment I am trying to complete a script for a little project that I'm doing in April.

Clock struck 12, 41 minutes ago. My birthday. Nothing fancy, just working on a script.


In a few hours after I sleep and wake up, it will be rehearsals for a TV series that I'm directing. (it's the main reason why I'm back)

Yes, it's all work.

But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Friday, March 02, 2012

EMPTY KINGDOM interviews me

The very awesome arts and culture website Empty Kingdom had just posted an interview they did with me.

In this interview, I discuss why I stick with short films, and mostly on my latest short LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Rest In Peace, Aunty Mak Fong 楓姨,一路好走



Mak Fong


Yesterday, I found out with sadness that the veteran actress Mak Fong 麦楓 had passed away after a brief battle with lung cancer. She was 77.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Regarding the Oscars...

The Oscars is just a few hours away, and if I don't oversleep until the afternoon, I might be able to catch its live stream on my computer.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Friday, February 03, 2012

Directing Life - article about me on Style: Magazine (Jan 2012)

I never imagined myself ever appearing on Style: Magazine. Ever. Not in my wildest dreams. Life is pretty insane. But here's Nicole Foo Bihzhu's feature on me at Style: Magazine.

I have to thank my old secondary school classmate Jesly Hieng once again, for scanning this. I was unable to find the magazine anywhere since I got back!

Directing Life (Style magazine, Jan 2012)


Wednesday, February 01, 2012

2nd Q&A session. LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER/ GIRL IN THE WATER @ International Film Festival Rotterdam 2012

On the 27th of January, after being much better-rested, I did the second Q and A session for LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER and GIRL IN THE WATER moderated by Paolo Bertolin. This one's pretty long since a kindly audience member was willing to help me film the entire session!

The entire thing lasted for more than half an hour... which was, er, actually longer than the running time of LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER (23 minutes), but I trimmed it down to spare your eyes and ears. I talked quite a bit about both short films, anecdotes during the film shoot and many others.

Here's the video.

Talking about the short films LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER and GIRL IN THE WATER @ International Film Festival Rotterdam 2012

I got back from Rotterdam yesterday after spending three nights at the festival. Everything was like a blur, my stay there was so brief (last year, I spent a week in Rotterdam before heading off to Clermont-Ferrand for another week). Already, I'm prepping for a short film shoot in the next few days.

Arriving at Rotterdam in the early morning of Jan 26th, I immediately had to prepare myself for the first festival screening in the afternoon. Not a lot of rest there.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Rest in peace, Theo Angelopoulos

Theo Angelopoulos


Yesterday, just like many other times, I woke up to the beeping sounds of Facebook chat, alerting me of incoming messages.

It was a film festival programmer friend of mine, his message was this:

Edmund, this has to do with one of your favourite film topics, Theo Angelopoulos. He had just died in a traffic accident, ran over by a motorbike!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Two of my shorts, LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER and GIRL IN THE WATER at Rotterdam International Film Festival 2012

After only a few days in Malaysia to celebrate Chinese New Year, I'm flying off again in less than 24 hours to Netherlands for the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

Both my short film LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER (making its European premiere) and another, GIRL IN THE WATER by Danish director Jeppe Ronde and my regular collaborator Woo Ming Jin ("THE TIGER FACTORY", "WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER"), which I helped to produce and edit, will part of the WAITING FOR SNOW IN MY KAMPONG program.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

A simple reunion dinner @ my home (Chinese New Year 2012)

After a few days of shoot in Taipei, and then another few days in Hong Kong for the post-production session, I returned to Tokyo for half a day, before making my way back to Malaysia for Chinese New Year.

It was the morning of January 20th. Tokyo was snowing for the very first time in 2012.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Hiroshi Teshigahara's films and Ikebana

It's been a busy week.

My friend Dawn Yang (she's also something of an unofficial mascot of this blog. Look at the 'most popular posts' on your right, people generally stumble onto this website because they were looking for her or the exposing of her alleged boyfriend) had just came to Tokyo for a visit, so I was showing her around. If you were following on Twitter, you'll spot these tweets.

Friday, January 06, 2012

My segment in '60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero' also mentioned in NEGATIV

This article by Dennis Vetter at the highly-regarded German film website NEGATIV came out just a few days after the Dec 22 screening of the omnibus film '60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero' (on Christmas Day, actually).

I saw this article shortly after it was published and browsed through it hoping that I could understand something with my limited German skills. Unfortunately, the only word I recognized was my own name.

So I ran this through Google Translation and here's a rough translation about what the article said regarding 'I DREAMT OF SOMEONE DREAMING OF ME', my contribution to the omnibus film.

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

I was mentioned in Hollywood Reporter's review of '60 Seconds of Solitude in the Year Zero'

It's a great way to start the year. The stunningly beautiful balloons of the Zojo-ji New Year Countdown. An epic dinner of desserts with Dawn Yang yesterday.



And today, on the 3rd day of 2012, Maggie Lee's review of 60 SECONDS OF SOLITUDE IN YEAR ZERO (omnibus film I participated in) on Hollywood Reporter had this to say about my segment "I Dreamt Of Someone Dreaming Of Me".

Sunday, January 01, 2012

Thousands of balloons in the air during the countdown to 2012 @ Zojo-ji Temple, Tokyo

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Well, I wasn't expecting to end 2011 with such a downer of a post.

Therefore, I'm going to start this year with a bang, by showing you a video I shot of the countdown to 2012 at Zojo-ji Temple that I went to last night.

(... there was also a rather big earthquake right before I started writing this, when it was shaking, I was sitting on my bed, quietly wondered how serious would it get. And as I was thinking, the quake stopped. Apparently, it was a Magnitude 7.0 earthquake.)

But anyway, here's the video.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

A somewhat nightmarish dream I had to end the year 2011.

It's the last day of the year. I had a troubling dream this morning, even though my sleep was brief (9am to 1:30pm, yes my sleep patterns are odd).

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Kultuurikatel - The place where Andrei Tarkovsky shot STALKER

If you have read my epic previous post about the 60 SECONDS OF SOLITUDE IN YEAR ZERO screening held on the 22nd of December, I don't blame you if you've thought that my trip in Estonia climaxed during its first day.

I thought the same too as I left the Port of Tallinn on a boat, heading towards the venue of the closing ceremony. That was my last public screening of 2011, ending a very busy year when I had travelled around the film festival circuit almost every month. I would just kick back and relax, recharge my energies. I had a few more days in Tallinn, I expected to spend them in solitude since I was staying around longer than the other invited guests (I was scheduled to fly back to Tokyo on Christmas day). Explore Tallinn, soak in the festive atmosphere, I don't really celebrate Christmas, but the excitement of being half a world away would probably dampen the inevitable melancholy feeling that often plague my soul.

But then, as usual, life is full of little surprises. I then found out that the after-party was to be held in a place called Kultuurikatel. The exact place where Andrei Tarkovsky shot STALKER.

Monday, December 26, 2011

60 Seconds of Solitude At Year Zero screening @ Port of Tallinn

I was in Tallinn because of the omnibus film project 60 SECONDS OF SOLITUDE AT YEAR ZERO, the whole concept was 60 directors, 60 seconds each, so that everything comes together as a 1-hour omnibus film. Invited directors range from cinematic legends to exciting up-and-comers and to the utterly-obscure-but-somewhat-cute (me).

The film was supposed to be screened only once, on the 22nd of December, at the Port of Tallinn, and as the film was being screened, it was being burned as well, so there is no way this can be screened again.

Now, you can skip my colourful commentary and beautiful photos by watching the video now.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Quick Tour in Tallinn Old Town

Merry Christmas.

Having a 7-hour layover in Amsterdam on my way back to Tokyo, so I'll recap my past few days in Tallinn.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Off to Tallinn (Estonia) for the 60 SECONDS OF SOLITUDE IN YEAR ZEROscreening!

I DREAMT OF SOMEONE DREAMING OF ME 1


I'll be flying off to Estonia in a couple of hours. (by the time you're reading this, I'm probably already on the plane).

A month ago, I was invited to participate in the 60 SECONDS OF SOLITUDE IN YEAR ZERO omnibus project with a group of directors from all over the world. Most other directors involved in this are world-famous masters like Naomi Kawase, Park Chan Wook, Amir Naderi, Shinji Aoyama, Kim Ji-Woon, Tom Tywker, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Brillante Mendoza and many others (see full list of directors). Being able to participate in this project with filmmakers whose works have inspired me so much is quite an honour, and also rather humbling. (I'm listed as a representative for both Malaysia and Japan, the other filmmaker representing Malaysia is my regular collaborator Woo Ming Jin).

Each director is supposed to make a 1-minute short film, so that when all our contributions are put together, it becomes a (hopefully awesome) one-hour omnibus film.

And there will only be ONE screening for this omnibus film, in Tallin, on the 22nd of December.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Visiting Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world (so I can be like Tom Cruise)

I was a little disappointed that I couldn't catch MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL at the opening ceremony of Dubai Film Fest. Being filmed in Dubai, the film had caused such a sensation that all the bigwigs and important people and probably even members of the royal family had reserved their places for its world premiere (and catch a glimpse of Tom Cruise).

Wanting to be like Tom, I decided to visit the Burj Khalifa. It wasn't open to public the first two times I went to Dubai (2008, 2010).

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Friday, December 16, 2011

Films I saw at Dubai International Film Festival 2011 (Part 2)

Came back from Dubai last night, slept through most of the entire flight. It's a fun feeling.

I'm now going to continue from my previous post, Films I saw at Dubai International Film Festival 2011 (Part 1), by listing out the rest of the films I caught in the Dubai Film Fest, along with some anecdotes if I have any.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Films I saw at Dubai International Film Festival 2011 (Part 1)

This is my last night in Dubai. The past week had been a blur. I didn't get to camwhore that much. Just one photo at the red carpet of a red carpet event that I didn't really attend.

Monday, December 05, 2011

My new short LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER having world premiere at Dubai International Film Festival 2011

So... I'm announcing the world premiere of my latest short film LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER less than a week before it is happening at this year's Dubai International Film Festival. My publicity skills have gone down the drains. It's hard, juggling my responsibility as a filmmaker, creator, producer and, er, self-promoter. In an ideal world, someone else would have been promoting me instead of me doing all these myself, but the world isn't ideal, and my films are probably not the type that people would jump in to promote, so... there you go.

I have a very nice poster though.

Sunday, December 04, 2011

4 of my short films online now thanks to Yxine Film Fest's Mini-Focus on me.

The YxineFF is an annual online short film festival that focuses mostly on Vietnamese short films, and also some South East Asian ones.

I met its founder Marcus Manh Cuong Vu at last year's Hamburg International Film Festival, when he moderated the question and answer for THE TIGER FACTORY screening (Ming Jin the director couldn't go, so I went on his behalf as the immensely cute producer). He also later did a short interview with me about Malaysian Independent Cinema and other stuff.

I'm very honoured that this year's Yxine Film Festival is doing a mini-focus on me. For a temporary amount of time, four of my previous short films are uploaded online for the viewing pleasure of audiences, all of them except INHALATION are actually loose adaptations of Yasunari Kawabata's works.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Off to Taipei for the Golden Horse Film & TV Film Project Promotion (FTPP)

It's 6:07am while I'm writing this. In a few hours, I will be hopping onto a bus to Narita Airport and catch the flight to Taipei for the Golden Horse Film & TV Film Project Promotion (FTTP), a project market similar to the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) in March, or the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) in July.

Characteristic of me, I have yet to sleep at all. I guess I wanted a better sleep in the plane.

I'm shopping a feature film project of mine called REINCARNATED DREAMS OF DEER, which I've spent the last few months in seclusion trying to write (aside from the span of time during Tokyo Film Festival, I was really just writing this screenplay since I came back to Tokyo in September). If everything comes together, this would become my debut feature-length film.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Yurakucho Winter Illumination

Was at Yurakucho just now for dinner when I ran into a huge crowd, and saw a group of women singing on a makeshift stage. I realized that it was the opening ceremony for the Winter Illumination.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Jimbocho, treasure trove for book lovers!

When I went to Jimbocho almost two weeks ago, towards the end of the Tokyo Film Festival. A book festival was being held, so there were numerous stalls at the streets, selling books.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

'LADYBIRD'S TEARS' by Kong Pahurak wins award at Sichuan TV Festival

zhu dan in Ladybird's Tears


You probably don't remember Ladybird's Tears, an experimental short film directed and narrated by Kong Pahurak (who was one of the two cinematographers of LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER, my last short). I've only mentioned it once, last year in April, before it made its world premiere at the Singapore Film Fest 2010.

In January 2010, while editing EXHALATION (... argh, I thought I wouldn't be talking about it again), i saw the footage of Kong's unfinished sci-fi short film starring my friend Zhu Dan (pictured above), and decided to salvage it by rewriting and editing the thing. I rearranged the narrative, Kong and I then had some major brainstorming sessions, together we wrote his voiceover narration (I wrote in English, he translated it to Thai), it became a somewhat meta-film about a filmmaker ruminating over an unfinished sci-fi short film. It felt like a jamming session that took us a few days to complete (or was it a week?).

Two days ago, Kong received an email notification from the 2011 (11th) Sichuan TV Festival that Ladybird's Tears had won a Special Jury Award for Experimental Film. I think neither of us can make our way to the award ceremony next week to pick up the award, I'll be curious to see how the trophy will look like. I'm happy that Kong's film is getting some recognition!

Here is a mini-review of Ladybird's Tears (along with my Love Suicides and Kingyo) at Wise Kwai's Thai Film Journal.

EXHALATION (and MAGIC AND LOSS) begins theatrical run in Cinema Rosa, Ikebukuro

Tokyo Film Festival 2011 ended exactly a week ago, but I continued promoting EXHALATION with Kiki.

Just two days after Tokyo Film Fest's closing ceremony, on the evening of November 1st, Kiki and I presented EXHALATION to a group of students at a class in Waseda University taught by WINDS OF ASIA director Kenji Ishizaka. (a year ago, I presented LOVE SUICIDES and INHALATION to the same class).

It was fun!

Waseda Festival 2011

It's Sunday. Thought it would be a nice and quiet day for me to head to the editing lab and continue editing my top secret one-minute long epic project.

When I woke up, I finished watching the first episode of Torchwood that I dozed off watching the night before (nothing to do with the quality of the show, I was tired). There was a power outage at my place scheduled from 10am to 3pm, figured it was a good time to leave once the power went out.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Video: KIKI SUGINO: MUSE OF THE ASIAN INDIE CINEMA press conference

Was at the KIKI SUGINO: MUSE OF THE ASIAN INDIE CINEMA press conference yesterday. I'm part of the session with Kiki and BREATHLESS filmmaker Yang Ik June (who acted in Lim Kah Wai's MAGIC AND LOSS and was involved in the omnibus film where Kiki made her acting debut)

The entire video is here.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Introducing EXHALATION with actress/producer Kiki Sugino before its Tokyo International Film Fest screening


Kiki and I, after the EXHALATION screening at Tokyo International Film Festival


My short film EXHALATION was screened on the 23rd of October, Sunday at the Tokyo International Film Festival. I was considered an 'opening act' for Lim Kah Wai's feature film MAGIC AND LOSS. This is me, trying to act like a rock star.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Jackie Chan and Japanese PM

After walking the lengthy green carpet, we finally entered the Roppongi Hills cinema for the opening ceremony. (the green carpet event lasted for 2 hours, a blessing, actually, without the delay from the rain, it would have been 4 hours! So after walking the carpet, I still had time to head off to a quickie lunch nearby before attending the ceremony)

I was surprised that Jackie Chan was here!

Walking the green carpet at Tokyo International Film Festival 2011

Yesterday afternoon was the opening of the Tokyo International Film Festival 2011.

Like last year, I got to walk the green carpet again. Awesome!

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Death of an old classmate

A few days ago, I noticed a Facebook status of an ex-secondary school classmate.

He wrote (in Chinese):
'Missing a good friend, Yan Chee Seong'

I suddenly realized that it's exactly been ten years since a classmate of mine died in a horrendous car accident when I was in Form 5. That was my last year in secondary school. It was just a month before SPM (to non-Malaysian readers: that's the final government exams we had to take to finish secondary school).

For some people, ten years can feel like yesterday, but for me, more and more, time is turning into something more languid, even ten months ago felt like years, thus ten years felt like an entire lifetime ago. Yet I remembered some details.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

EXHALATION screening at Malaysian Shorts (Oct 19, Help University)

Yep, Malaysian audiences can finally check out my short film, EXHALATION, exactly a week before its screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

EXHALATION will be one of the ten short films screened on the Oct 17th edition of Malaysian Shorts in Help University.

More info about the line-up:

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Karayuki-san: The forgotten Japanese prostitution era






Been in seclusion the past week to write my screenplay. It's not an easy one to write, so it's been taking a lot of my energies. I have kinda cut myself away from the rest of the world, spending almost every night in McDonald's.

There's no point telling you all that much about it since it's still in its infancy.

Sometimes, I do some heavy researches while I prepare a script (or a shoot). Do a film marathon that could help inspire me, go through books, scour through the net, do some email interviews etc. A lot of excavation is needed.

Back in July, when I started developing the idea for my screenplay, I suddenly stumbled upon a piece of information that actually rocked my world.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

The death of a great American bookstore

I read this CNN article, 'The death and life of a great American bookstore' two weeks ago (it's a eulogy for Borders). These few paragraphs summed up best how I feel about a bookstore.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

New trailer for EXHALATION

I think its upcoming screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival will signal the gradual end of EXHALATION's run in the festival circuit. The short film has had a good run ever since its world premiere in Dubai last December, much better than I could have imagined. The film was shot in late 2009, (check out the production photos from Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 of the shoot) and went through a non-stop 40-hour marathon editing session.

It's almost two years ago, but it felt much longer than that. Many of the people from the team had since went on with their lives, going to different places. That's the thing about film shoots, they always feel like a distant dream, fading away as I watch its end results.

For the cast and crew who had helped me so much, the film would never been to all these places without them. So I decided to cut together a new trailer for the film yesterday, perhaps as a way to signify some sort of closing of a chapter.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

My short film, EXHALATION, screening at Tokyo International Film Festival

On the day that Tokyo was hit by a massive typhoon, the Tokyo International Film Festival (Oct 22-30) announced its full line-up.

My short, EXHALATION, will be screened at the festival as part of the SUGINO KIKI: MUSE OF THE ASIAN INDIE CINEMA program.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Babes of Tokyo Game Show 2011

The more I tried to run, the more I got sucked back in again, into the dark underbelly of the human psyche.

Yes, dear readers, once again I returned to the annual labyrinth of depravity known as the Tokyo Game Show 2011. From BABES OF TOKYO GAME SHOW 2008 and BABES OF TOKYO GAME SHOW 2010, you know the agony I felt whenever I was forced to interact with the beautiful booth babes of Tokyo Game Show.

AFTERNOON RIVER, EVENING SKY screening at Malaysian Shorts (Sept 19, Help University)



[EVENING SKY] Lay Fun makes a phone call


My short film, AFTERNOON RIVER, EVENING SKY, will be one of the 8 shorts films screening at the next edition of Malaysian Shorts in Help University on the 19th of September (Monday), 8 - 10pm.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Celebrating Mid-autumn Festival 2011 at Tsukuba Science City

The last time I wrote about the Mid-autumn Festival (or Mooncake Festival) was in 2006.

It's pretty unbelievable that half a decade had gone by. I was in Perth then. On that day, I was shooting my final student film, GIRL DISCONNECTED. So confident with my talents back then, that I thought I was shooting THE definitive Mid-autumn Festival short film.

It was a fantastical tale of a girl who took a train to the moon to seek her love (whom she met on the internet), accompanied by a friend who secretly loved her. Mooncakes appeared in the film. So did Chang-er, and other mythological beings of the moon.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

"I want sensuality and sheer sexiness!"

Hopefully you've seen Kenny's photos of my latest film shoot that I posted last night. If not, go see it now!

Now, my own photos of the shoot... (not that many, of course, when you're directing, you only whip out your iPhone occasionally to capture magic)

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Photos from my latest film shoot

Returned to Tokyo last night. Prior to that, I was, as usual, in a two-day film shoot on the 4th and 5th of September. (yes, I'm always shooting something in Malaysia just before I return to Tokyo, this sense of urgency adds more to my desperation, and desperation leads to more creativity). Assistant cinematographer Kenny Chua had posted a number of great stills of our epic production.

These are our three main actresses.


The three main actresses


Saturday, September 03, 2011

Saturday, August 13, 2011

VCinema interviews Kiki Sugino. She thinks I should be an actor. (for my looks, I guess)

VCinema had just posted up Marc Saint-Cyr's interview with Kiki Sugino (actress and producer of my short film Exhalation) regarding both our collaboration and also HOSPITALITE by Koji Fukada, which she also produced and acted.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Editing GIRL IN WATER, the Danish-Malaysian short film co-production

Back in June, I was involved in a Danish-Malaysian short film co-production tentatively titled GIRL IN THE WATER. (read about the film shoot here and here)

Sunday, August 07, 2011

83-year-old Yut Kee Coffee Shop

One of the icons of Kuala Lumpur that I probably never heard of until yesterday (yes, I'm embarrassed). I have returned briefly from Japan, my high school friends, Woan Foong (she's the composer of my short films, notably Inhalation and Exhalation, based in the States for the past few years), and Yuan Yue (based in Singapore since 3 months ago), were also back in Malaysia for a short while, so we went to the Yut Kee Coffee Shop for lunch.

The conversation prior to lunch was like this:

Saturday, August 06, 2011

Moments in RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES that lingered

Yes, I'm still slightly shocked, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is actually pretty good. Possibly one of the best of the year.

Friday, August 05, 2011

WU XIA is a remake of some film by some Canadian director...



A day before I saw Peter Chan's Wu Xia last Sunday, I was having dinner with a bunch of other filmmakers. AT THE END OF DAYBREAK director Ho Yuhang, who had seen the film, said this:

"Wu Xia is sort of like a remake of a famous film by a Canadian director, but I won't tell you which one since it'll spoil you."

Thursday, August 04, 2011

NOW - Short film I did for Prada

Moon Lai is pensive


Almost a year ago, I mentioned about shooting a 1-minute epic here and here, and ended this:

We finished the shoot almost by midnight. By having such a long and ardous shoot with a child actress, it's most possible I'll be accused of child labour. In fact, because it's supposed to be an epic compressed into a single minute, it was one of the toughest and most challenging shoots I've ever endured.

Yet I soldiered on, and the end product is most probably awesome.

If it's really awesome, you'll be seeing it soon.

If not, well, I'll probably just pretend that this shoot never happened.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

My short films INHALATION and EXHALATION are opening and closing films of InDPanda Short Film Festival

The InDPanda International Short Film Festival in Hong Kong is happening from the 5th to the 25th of August. My short film, INHALATION (last screened at the Guanajuato International Film Festival in Mexico few days ago. You may remember that I wrote a message about the Bersih 2.0 rally to the audiences) will be part of its opening program on the 5th of August.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Attending a high school play triggers a flood of memories (... again)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I went to Chung Hwa International High School on Friday evening to attend a high school play starring TIGER FACTORY lead actress Moon Lai's younger brother, Jack. You don't get invited to high school plays everyday.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

An empty high school canteen, a basketball court, and the passing of time.

It's not everyday that you get invited to attend a high school play, so when Moon Lai (THE TIGER FACTORY's lead actress) told me about her younger brother's musical play, I was intrigued to go. (I will write about the play in my next post.)

Thursday, July 28, 2011

"... So, I finally bought edmundyeo.com"

It took me a while, but I bought the edmundyeo.com domain three days ago. The blog has finally completed its transition to this new domain few moments earlier, so I thought it's time to make this official announcement.

Monday, July 25, 2011

My favourite moment in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

I saw this a few days ago.

I'll write about the series in its entirety when I'm free enough. After all, the Harry Potter film series was something I viewed with cynicism at first, before becoming something I gradually loved. (I stopped reading the books after Book 5) Perhaps because it's finally ended, its inevitable absence makes the heart grows fonder.

Anyway, I thought that Snape's flashback was the highlight of the film. Alan Rickman's sublime performance, for his unforgettable character, it was a great way to send him off.

And the following exchange was my favourite moment in my favourite scene of the entire film.

Dumbledore: Lily... after all this time?

Snape: Always.



Somehow the exchange lingered in my mind. Perhaps it was the context, or the performance, the haunting music, the way Rickman enunciated his lines as Snape, perhaps it was the previous shot of Snape holding a dead Lily Potter in his arms crying, perhaps it was a little bit of everything. Perhaps I'm just a softie.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

My message about the July 9th BERSIH rally to the Guanajuato International Film Festival

My short film INHALATION is now playing at the Guanajuato International Film Festival in Mexico. (film page here.)

[INHALATION] Mei (Susan Lee) at the dock


Due to the fact that I was unable to make my trip to Mexico, the festival staff members asked whether I would like them to help me pass a message to the audience after the screening of my film. So I wrote them the following:

Friday, July 22, 2011

Last thoughts on Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival 2011

I've already returned to Tokyo yesterday afternoon.

Ultimately, Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PIFAN) 2011 had been a fun festival for me, to be able to hang out with old friends, and then meeting up with new ones. Great food, interesting films and the like.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Video: Seru (Resurrection) Q & A session with Woo Ming Jin at Puchon International Fantastic Film Fest

Aside for the NETWORK OF ASIAN FANTASTIC FILMS project market that Ming Jin and I was attending. Ming Jin was also at Puchon International Film Fest for the screening of the film SERU (known as RESURRECTION outside Malaysia), which was making its second festival screening after Udine Far East Film Festival back in April.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival 2011 Day 1

Yesterday, I took a morning flight to Seoul to attend the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival. Ming Jin's new project THE FORGIVEN has been selected for this edition's NAFF (Network of Asian Fantastic Films). NAFF is a project market, like Hong Kong's HAF, which selects projects in development by filmmakers and allow them to pitch to possible co-producers and financiers in one-on-one meetings. I'm attached to the project as producer.

As usual, I didn't sleep the night before because it's a morning flight and I had to take a 5am train to the Tokyo City Air Terminal to catch a bus to Narita Airport. The journey to Narita, as usual, is always more soul-sapping than the flight.

The flight, however, was wondrous since I got bumped up to business class.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Japanese director Masahiro Kobayashi's live gig at Manda-la 2

Yesterday evening, I headed to Manda=la 2 at Kichijoji to catch Japanese director Masahiro Kobayashi's live gig.

Director Masahiro Kobayashi performs


Saturday, July 09, 2011

Goodbye, Yao Ming

Yao Ming


Aside from the Bersih Rally, another big news I got this morning that sort of sadden me a little was NBA Superstar Yao Ming's retirement. He's 30, went through some bad injuries 3 years ago, I kinda knew it was the end then.

BERSIH Rally

Most of my blog readers are not from Malaysia. Many are from Japan, or perhaps people interested in Japan. Unsurprising, considering that I'm in Tokyo.

Therefore, I find a need to create awareness of the Bersih ("clean" in Malay) Rally happening right now, yes, RIGHT NOW, in Malaysia.

And mass arrests are happening. Our ever-diligent police had set up road blocks, deployed trucks mounted with water cannons, seal off parts of the capital Kuala Lumpur, in an attempt to prevent this banned rally. (While I am writing this, a couple of people I know have tweeted that they've gotten tear gases in their eye)

You can read more about it here.

Quote a few paragraphs from the article to give you some context.

Friday, July 08, 2011

Breathing in a library

So, aside from writing in McDonald's at night, I have also been going to the library in Waseda University during daytimes to write. After all, what better place than a library where you won't be distracted by noises, or say, the Internet (main reason why I don't write in my room), right?

Have this ever happened to you? That in order to try your best to be silent, you become hypersensitive and paranoid to the sounds around you? This happened to me just now. For a while, I stopped from writing when I was mildly distracted by the sound of breathing. Was it the sound of my own breathing? I seemed to be wheezing, it sounded a little distracting.

Then I held my breath, and realized that the sound of breathing remained. So it really wasn't the sound of my own breathing after all, but the guy sitting opposite my desk. A wooden plank separates us, but I could totally hear him breathing. Perhaps he was nursing a cold, or maybe he was a heavy breather.

Here I am, in the library, supposedly writing a screenplay, yet I end up blogging about the mundane instead with my iPhone.

Location:1丁目,Shinjuku,Japan

Thursday, July 07, 2011

"The Downtown Star Festival" (Shitamachi Tanabata Matsuri) at Kappabashi-Hondori.

Today is the 7th of July, which is the beginning of the Tanabata (七夕, meaning "Evening of the seventh"), the Japanese star festival that originates from the Chinese Qixi Festival.

You might have heard of it, the meeting between Orihime and Hikoboshi, the Weaving Princess and the Cowherder. The Milky Way separates these lovers, so they are only permitted to meet once a year, on the 7th of July. You can read more of it here.

Therefore, celebrations are supposed to begin today until the weekends.

I caught wind that a Tanabata Festival is usually held at the Kappabashi Street (official website here), which extends 1.2 km, from Ueno Station to the Tsukuba Express Station in Asakusa, the famed Shitamachi Tanabata Matsuri. So I headed there with a friend for a walk.

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

The world is a cruel place for artists! LOL!

Okay, I've disappeared off the past week to do some writing.

I managed to finish a film treatment, which I'm absolutely excited about. Am now working on the screenplay, not an easy task, but am trying my best. Creativity is a precious little thing to hold on to.