881

I finally watched 881, around 1 week after the end of the 7th month. There was no question about where I was to watch it. It had to be in the local Eng Wah cinema in the town centre. You have to watch it in a theatre in a HDB heartland. It wouldn't make sense in a Golden Village / Cineleisure outlet, that's American suburban culture.

Amidst all the hype about Royston Tan's first big budget picture, the glitzy costumes the flamboyant song and dance numbers and unexpected box office success locally there was only 1 thought on my mind. Is 881 a prime number? Apparently it is, if you are searching for primes, you only have to search as far as the square root of the number, which means you can stop at 30. So 881 is indeed a prime number.

So the director of "15" and "4:30" have given us another film, imaginatively titled "881". what's all this shit with numbers man? Whoops maybe I shouldn't complain since all my blog names have been numbers too.

A fine movie. It's been said before that Royston Tan's biggest strength is his eye for colour and flamboyance. How he was entirely in his element while filming gangsters. It was entirely natural that he should move to getai. I knew I had to watch this film when it came out, once I saw the advance posters that cast May and Choy as getai singers. It couldn't have been for any purpose other than comic effect. Yes, May and Choy suck at Chinese, apparently so does Royston, but he still manages to get everything translated, still manages to capture the spirit of getai. Shouldn't be a problem there.

Qi Yuwu is basically the surrogate eye of the director. Does nothing but watch and take it all in, which is how I'd imagine Royston interacting with this heartlander world. He's more or less the gigolo of the film: friendly obliging chaffeur. Nice cock too.

Nice comic touches. The actresses playing the papaya sisters are good, and the one playing the auntie as well as he twin sister the Goddess of Getai is also good. The durian sisters are Paris Hilton plays Paris Hilton sorts. Possibly they didn't speak Mandarin prior to shooting this movie. Qi Yuwu does nothing but stroke his cock all day long.

It'll be nice if we were to see what the Papaya sisters did in real life. Like what do getai singers do for the other 11 or 12 months of the year, other than smoking with facial masks on, or snogging gigolos in car washes? I thought it would be nice to have some dead spirits pay these getai people a visit. Why not show these people burning hell money? Chinese religion offers up a lot of great visuals, from the colourful altars to the lion dances to the temple mediums.

The stuff that lets the show down are the slow bits. First lesson of drama: everything is action. And I mean everything. Sometimes the action is not evident, but it is happening under the surface, which is why "Hamlet", which is about some wishy washy guy wondering what the hell to do is also action, the action is in the tension.

Then the focus of the narration? If you want to see everything through the eyes of a character, then the characters which are being seen should not have to speak for themselves. In other words, let Qi Yuwu do the speaking for the papaya sisters. If Qi Yuwu is not needed as a medium between the stage and the audience, then he is simply not needed as a character.

As with the last time I posted on Singapore Dreaming, I have to kaopeh about how all Singapore films centre themselves around themes instead of stories. "I Not Stupid" is the Education System film. "Best Bet" is the Lottery Film. "Singapore Dreaming" is the Rat Race Film. "12 Storeys" is the HDB Ennui Film. "Just Follow Law" is the Gahment Sector Film. It'll be some time til we make a film that isn't some travel brochure or docu drama, something that will tell a story that is less about something specific to Singaporeans (ie something that screams out "LOCAL FILM") and something that's more about what's universal to the human condition ("FOREIGN FILM"?).

But these are small complaints, and the overall impression of the film is a positive one. Yes, maybe it's just the charm of seeing Hokkien spoken on the big screen. Or seeing the last hurrah of a dying culture.

Also, another interesting observation: it may well be true that more than 70% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats, but it also doesn't seem as though it's possible that we'll be seeing a Singaporean film set in condos / district 9/10 posh places any time soon. Which is true, there's no life in those places, and it looks just like a cemetary. No sounds save those of dogs barking.

Was talking about this with a cousin of mine one day, she worked on a Singapore film before. Said it was overhyped. Yes, let's be realistic, "881" is a good but flawed film, and hardly a masterpiece. But you got to be proud about the stuff that's coming out of your own country. Like, I wouldn't consider "My Sassy Girl" to be a masterpiece either, even if I readily concede that Jeon Ji Hyun is was more chio than the zha bohs in 881. But she also shared some juicy titbits. Like how Daniel Yun and Qi Yuwu are gay lovers. (Disclaimer: This is an unverified rumour.) Damn, that should explain how Qi Yuwu was explaining not long ago that his latest *thrust* was *into* movies. (And movie executives, I'll bet.) Seems like Royston Tan is also gay.

Was sorting out a huge bunch of ebooks I downloaded off Bit Torrent as a bundle, and came across William Gibson's "Disneyland with the Death Penalty". Motherfucker seems to think of Singapore as some sort of cultural wasteland. I'm wondering if he isn't just some thick angmoh who doesn't get it.