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:

Taipei 101, The Tallest Building In The World (... for now)

Visited Taipei 101, the tallest COMPLETED building in the world today.

Trying understand Tsui Hark's career arc

Dad had finally finished his conference, so he could finally join us (that's me + mom + Uncle Beau) on our Taipei exploration.

First place of the day we went to was the Guanghua Market, which is Taipei's equivalent of Low Yat Plaza or the Digital Mall (or Japan's Akihabara)

KURUS Production Diary - Photos from Semenyih

Four photos I took with my mobile phone when I was location hunting with Ming Jin the Mentor at Semenyih for our upcoming production KURUS (I posted about the problems I faced with casting the main role few days ago). It was the day before I flew off to Taiwan.

Half-day Taipei City Tour

The middle building is the hotel I'm staying at.

Taipei Film House, Ding Tai Feng and street vendors of Taipei

I tried out the Tonkatsu Burger in McDonald's for lunch for one reason:

It's pork.

We don't have pork burgers in Malaysia.

Raohe Street Night Market

I'm in Taipei right now. Arrived just a few hours earlier. Came with my parents. Dad was supposedly going to have a meeting regarding some music publishing stuff, so he has two of his colleagues with him, so mom decided to tag along, and since mom tagged along, I decided to tag along as well, and since I tagged along, my uncle (mom's cousin) decided to tag along too, so now we have six people going to Taipei together.

Reached Taipei around seven in the evening, wasn't too impressed by the airport as it didn't look that different from the last time I visited... 11 years ago (I've never actually been to the country, but had stopped by at the airport during several occasions for transit). After checking in at the Donghwa Hotel, we decided to go for food. One of the receptionists (who bore a slight resemblance to Elva Hsiao) recommended the Raohe Street night Market just a few blocks away from the hotel, and that's where we went.

The place looks really beautiful at night, and reminds me of Petaling Street (which is also one of those places which looks much better at night compared to the day).