Aspire to create banner at the entrance of Chinese High School..

On the 22nd November 2004, the Moviexclusive team attended the first Manga Art Competition held in conjunction with a movie premiere. Video Van Entertainment Industries Pte Ltd with The Chinese High School and Media Development Authority came together to create this event that aim to infuse creativity into secondary school students with what the latest cutting edge computer graphics have to provide.

That movie was “Casshern”, the recent Japanese sci-fi adventure filled with spectacular 3 D graphics, directed and brainchild of top notch fashion photographer and music video director, Kazuaki Kiriya. This film recently collected US$14.3 million during its release in Japan and was in the top 10 Box office for 5 weeks.

Using “Casshern” to inspire Singapore youth is a brilliant idea as the Japanese manga culture has a huge influence with Singaporean teenagers in recent year. It is clearly evident that this event would be a success when more than 150 schools signed up for this event and many more students without the assistance of their schools would be.

The event consists of a “Casshern” manga art drawing competition and students aged 13 to 16 were given the choice to draw any 1 of the 6 characters featured in the “Casshern” movie. They were given 1 hour to visualize and present their chosen character onto a blank A3 sheet in the most creative way they possibly could. For those who are not versatile in drawing manga, 1 hour was insufficient to complete the drawing. However the impressive aspect of the participants is that they came prepared and most of them were able to complete their artwork and make it that looked like it came from a professional studio.

One of the highlights of the event occurred near the end of the competition, when the Guest of Honour, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth & Sports Senior Minister of State for Trade & Industry graced this event. He was first greeted by a roaring lion dance drum performance by the Chinese High students and later on, he was brought to view the drawings that were short listed by the three judges.

Among the short listed drawings, different styles were sketched into each piece. One drawing that caught Dr Vivian Balakrishnan’s attention was one drawn of the lead character, “Casshern”. It was a simple headshot glancing to his right and Dr Vivian Balakrishnan was simply impressed with the artist’s Line Art and how the artist shaded the art with very fine lines. Indeed, all the short listed drawings were able to capture the anatomy and facial features to deliver the accurate personality to characters of “Casshern”

Eventually, someone has to outshine the rest. The top three winners were from Outram Secondary School (3rd Prize), Nan Hua Secondary (2nd Prize) and Crescent Girl(1st Prize). After the prize presentation, the prizewinners, all the participants, teachers and your dear moviexlcusive crew were treated to a two-hour Premiere of “Casshern”.

1st Prize Aemilia Mariani Widodo (Secondary 1) Crescent Girls' School 2nd Prize Hu Jing Xuan (Secondary 2) Nan Hua Secondary School 3rd Prize Lee Yeung (Secondary 4) Outram Secondary School
Click to view larger image.

“Casshern” opens on 24th November 2004, exclusively in Cathay Cinema.

Winners of the Moviexclusive’s “Casshern” movie tickets and posters giveaway, please be reminded that the special screening of “Casshern” will be held on 02 Dec 2004, 07:30p.m. at Cathay Cineleisure Hall 8. These giveaways are only made possible with the kind support by Cathay Keris Films.

Click here for our review of Casshern.

Click here for discuss about the movie Casshern in our forum..