SYNOPSIS:
A
young man tries to 'dotcom' his father's illegal loan shark
business; a banker loses his handphone, then his mind; a girl
bites off more than she can chew when she starts a romance and
a bunch of heavy metal rockers who have to become a silly boy
band... PLUS the #1 Ah Beng University, Geylang's top poet and
how Singapore actually got its name! Based on satirical website
www.talkingcock.com. this 100% Singaporean comedy stars REAL
Singaporeans doing all sorts of crazy, wu liao stuff!
MOVIE REVIEW:
From the beginning, someone tells you that this isn’t
really a “movie”. He uses his hand to gesture
in opened and closed inverted commas whenever the word “movie”
is uttered. You have been warned – this isn’t
really what you consider a feature film with a proper story
plot and other conventional things you’d expect from
a movie. Before local filmmaker husband and wife Woo Yen Yen
and Colin Goh made their award-winning Singapore Dreaming
(2006), they made this. And like the paragraph on the back
of the DVD says: “Everybody must start somewhere, mah…”
The
90-minute picture is based on the satirical website www.talkingcock.com,
and is made up of a collection of, well, to describe it the
best way we could, gags, that are truly Singaporean. Expect
Singlish to be spouted by almost every character in the movie.
Expect well-represented segments featuring Chinese, Malay
and Indian protagonists. Expect dialogue and jokes that only
Singaporeans will understand. Also, expect lots of vulgarities
only Singaporeans will understand.
There
is a segment on how Sir Stamford Raffles founded our “sleazy”
island. There is a segment on how the dotcom business inspired
loan sharks to change their mode of dealing with clients.
There is a segment on how an alternative university aims to
educate Singapore’s youths with a unique Singapore brand
of curriculum. There are also some well-written tales of an
Indian banker losing his mobile phone, a Malay rock band trying
to find their voice and a Chinese bun seller who falls in
love with her customer.
What
makes this DVD fun to watch is how these profanities are translated
and subtitled, in grammatically correct English, no less.
It is rather difficult to raise some examples here without
directly stating the rude phrases, but let’s just say
this aspect of the DVD scores in the creativity section spot
on. Without saying too much, you’ll be looking at a
“cheese bun” in different light from now on.
Cameos
by poet, literary and cultural critic Kirpal Singh, and adventurer
cum motivational speaker Khoo Swee Chiow perk up the otherwise
star-less movie.
However,
you can also expect some rather bad acting and rather low
production values. But if you regard them in the name of fun,
all’s forgiven and you go along for the ride. You overlook
the unrefined style of filmmaking, the school production feel
of the entire movie and realize that the movie is just talking
cock to you.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
This Code 3 DVD comes with a substantial 56-minute
“Behind The Scenes” featurette where
Woo and Goh talk about how after winning a special achievement
award at the Singapore International Film Festival, they were
inspired to make a feature. You also get to see auditions
and recording sessions in this clip. There are two “Trailers”
in the DVD’s bonus feature section. The best part about
the DVD is the inclusion of the duo’s 19-minute
short film 3Meals starring Serene Chen. The sweet
piece of gem will have you drool at the idea of infusing food
with love.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The disc’s visual transfer isn’t exactly of the
best quality, but it’ll do for casual viewing. The movie
is presented in its original English, Chinese and Hokkien
language tracks.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by John Li
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