Do Not Disturb
•April 2, 2007 • 4 Comments
What really happens between a man and a woman within the confines of a budget hotel room? Is sex automatically assumed, or is there more than meets the eye?
These are but two of the probing questions posed in the new English-language television drama series, DO NOT DISTURB.
Shot like mini art-house films, with each episode set in the exact same hotel room, DO NOT DISTURB takes a voyeuristic look at what unfolds between seven couples behind closed doors, presenting heartfelt, in-depth and sometimes hilarious stories of the inevitabilities and complexities of relationships between a man and a woman in contemporary Singapore.
The series was conceived by actress and producer, Tan Kheng Hua and directed by one of Singapore’s leading film-makers, Kelvin Tong (Boku Films).
DO NOT DISTURB features Singapore talents from various creative fields, including scriptwriter, Chong Tze Chien (playwright, The Finger Players), production designer, Aamer Taher (architect, Aamer Taher Design), styling consultant, Daniel Goh (editor, Style Magazine), music composer, Joe Ng and music arranger, Alex Oh, as well as the vocals of local singer, Wendi Koh. The cast of TV and stage actors includes: Mark Lee, Lim Yu-Beng, Chermaine Ang, Adrian Pang, Andrea De Cruz, Sol Foo, Chio Su-Ping, Koey Foo, Noorlinah Mohd, Yeo Yann Yann, Andy Keegan, Serena Ho, Timothy Nga and Casey Lim.
THE PERFECT TEN
Two virgins who have saved themselves for their wedding night three days away check into the budget hotel as a quiet and convenient space to discuss last minute arrangements for their nuptials. After eight years of courtship, the “moment” they’ve been waitiing for, in more ways than one, is coming. Like all good Singaporeans, they have meticulously planned every detail of their wedding but soon, they will discover not all things are within their control. And the result? Madcap mayhem and hilarity.
HEN NIGHT
One would think any hot-blooded female would love being locked up in a room with a gorgeous male stripper paid to oblige her every whim and fancy. Mui Leng, a prissy and timid female accountant, who finds herself in this situation when her friends decide this is a perfect hen night gift, does not think so… at first. As the night wears on, she uncovers shocking revelations about herself with her new-found sense of empowerment.
LUNCH HOUR
An office affair between a smooth talking lawyer and his beautiful legal assistant finds a love nest in a budget hotel room near their office. they are in contented marriages but after giving in to a night of passion, find themselves incredibly bound to each other. They find themselves falling for each other but are both unable to leave their spouses. Best of both worlds or belonging to none?
HAPPY SWEET FORTY
Valerie, a high-flying, successful but single workaholic approaches her fortieth birthday feeling as if she’s accomplished nothing, her virginity a painful reminder of missed romantic opportunities. Determined to make a last ditch attempt at discovering a bit of romance, and a lot about lust, she orchestrates a meeting at a budget hotel room with her ex junior college classmate, Rodney, the stud of the class.
THE BREAK
Some of the darkest, ugliest and greyest sides of a relationship are revealed when two long-time partners head towards a break-up – especially when one wants out and the other does not. When Meng offers little reason for wanting to run off to London by himself, he and Kris check into a budget hotel to avoid arguing in front of the kids. they descend into the depths of broken promises, renegotiate new aspirations, wants and dreams in the course of one intensely painful and probably the longest night of their lives.
ONE NIGHT STAND
Two young, attractive strangers, a seemingly naive girl from Malaysia and a backpacker from Australia who don’t even speak the same language, burst into a budget hotel room in a state of heightened lust, eager to experience everything a one night stand promises – great sex with no commitments. But anonymous intimacy can be a dangerous game, and as the night progresses, it becomes obvious that the two have found their match in each other. Who will win in the game to achieve their own hidden agendas?
THE PRANK
A car mechanic mysteriously holes himself up in a budget hotel room for weeks, refusing to see anyone, idling his time away. Nothing seems to get him out of his rut. By accident, he lets a massage girl into the room and she stubbornly refuses to leave him alone. She soon becomes intrigued by his inexplicable behaviour and he starts to seek solace in her company while they spend their time making inane prank calls. This bittersweet tale shows how something infinitely meaningful can emerge from the unlikeliest of moments.
RECOLLECTIONS
The budget hotel is slated for demolition. A new, swanky five-star establishment is in the pipeline to take its place. Rodney, the architect from HAPPY SWEET FORTY, is in charge of the construction and design of this project. As research into the experience others have had of the budget hotel room, Rodney invites some past occupants back, and with their permission, records their recollections of the time spent in this place. In doing so, how the lives of our seven couples have evolved since they walked out of Room 545 is revealed.
Love Story 爱情故事
•March 25, 2006 • Leave a Comment
“In 1906, Admiral Robert Peary led a team of ten men on the first-ever human expedition to the North Pole. Along their journey, they faced countless hardships – starvation, frostbite, exposure, snow blindness and hypothermia – but none of them ever fell ill. The air at the North Pole is too cold for germs to breed. One night, the men opened a case of books and came down with terrible colds, which nearly killed them. The books were brand-new and had never been owned or read by anyone. They had, however, been apparently packed by someone infected with a cold. Books, you see, can be very dangerous.”
Thus begins LOVE STORY, the wry and idiosyncratic tale of books, novelists, murder, love, hate, fact and fiction.
Frustrated by his inarticulateness, a struggling writer dreams up a particular form of literary aphrodisiac. He picks up women at the public library.
Feeding off the women’s memories and life experiences, he discovers that the words he had waited so long for are finally flowing from the tip of his pen.
As the number of women in his life piles up dangerously, he begins discarding them at the secondhand bookstore.
If only life is that simple.
For love has a particular way of boomeranging back and smacking you in the face. Together, the writer’s women – a theatre usher with a flashlight, a female cop, a hypochondriac librarian and an avant-garde actress – set out their own ways to seek revenge on their love and tormentor.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
So much of contemporary Asian cinema is based on movies. That was a minor epiphany in 2005. I looked around me and realized that films were very often the genesis for other films. Copies and copies. That thought made me want to reach back deeper. And so, I looked at books – words, literature, poems, fables, fonts and print. Drawing on my own past experiences as a writer, I set out to create a tapestry of moods and feelings associated with the very difficult and often absurd act of writing. I wound up with a fantasy of sorts; landing somewhere between a doodler’s daydream and a Faustian nightmare. In LOVE STORY, I caught glimpses of the mania, narcissism, blindness and futility of the act of creation. It was both frightening and exhilarating.
Love Story 爱情故事 Photos
•March 25, 2006 • Leave a CommentHere are some of the shots from the movie…
“Where it all begins…”
The Usher played by Tracy Tan
“Will he come…”
“I Love You…”
“Find me…”
“Get down on the floor!”
The Cop played by Ericia Lee
“Do I know you?”
“For me…”
The Librarian played by Evelyn Tan
“What are you looking at!”
The Actress played by Amanda Ling
“Is Zhuang Zi real? Or is the Butterfly real?”
“Can you autograph my book?”
The Writer played by Lin Yi Lun
I LOVE YOU
“Who are you people!!”
Love Story
The Maid 女佣
•August 18, 2005 • Leave a Comment
During the Chinese Seventh Month, the gates of hell open and spirits are let loose upon an unsuspecting world.
For 30 days, the dead walk among the living.
To protect themselves, mortals devise rules.
Rules such as-Do not swim during the Seventh Month; do not turn back at night when someone calls out your name; do not talk to strangers on a deserted stretch of road.
For Rosa Dimaano (superstar Alessandra De Rossi), all those are just a bunch of old wives’ tales.
Hailing from a small village in the Philippines, the 18-year-old arrives in Singapore on the first day of the Seventh Month to work as a domestic maid.
She urgently needs money to save her ill brother back home in the Philippines and ghosts are the last things on her mind.
Happily for Rosa, life in Singapore cannot be rosier.
Her employers–the elderly and gentle Mr and Mrs Teo (veterans Chen Shu Cheng and Hong Hui Fang)–are a godsend, caring for her as if she is their own daughter.
Their mentally-handicapped son Ah Soon (newcomer Benny Soh) also takes to Rosa immediately.
Between cleaning house and helping the Teos out at their Chinese opera workplace, Rosa experiences the exotic sights and sounds of Singapore to her delight.
Then, things start going amiss.
Glimpsing strange apparitions at night, Rosa soon finds herself tumbling into the world of the dead.
Unknown to the innocent girl, she had unwittingly broken many rules on the first few days of the Seventh Month.
As the festivities reach a fever pitch in Singapore, Rosa’s life turns into a nightmare.
A mutilated boy haunts her.
A faceless woman appears in the Teos’ house.
Rosa feels as if she is losing her mind.
Her employers urge her to bear with the sightings.
But Rosa is uncertain.
Someone somewhere seems to be trying to reach out to her.
To keep her job, the poor girl has to stifle her screams and fear.
To save her brother, she must survive the terrors of the Chinese Seventh Month.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Maids.
They are seen all over Asia but they are rarely heard.
Working far away from home, these women toil day and night to earn a meager living, suffering many untold abuses.
Which makes them perfect as subjects for a horror film.
Horror films are built upon the pillars of isolation, unseen dangers and unspoken terror.
Maids are cut off from their loved ones, thrust into alien surroundings, expected to share a roof with strangers and then act as if everything is normal. It is an extraordinary predicament.
Imagine then, supernatural and freakish things start happening someone as isolated as a maid. Who can she turn to? When danger and terror mounts, she can’t even scream, for fear of losing her precious job.
When Raintree Pictures approached me to make a picture late 2004, I thought it was a good opportunity to make an uniquely Singaporean horror film about a Filipino maid.
To kickstart the horror element, we decided to have her arrive in Singapore on the first day of the Chinese Seventh Month, also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival – a period in which ghouls are released from Hell for a month of chaos.
From conception to completion, my desire was always to tell an universal story while maintaining Singaporean elements.
Hopefully, audiences everywhere will be drawn into the skittish eyes of the maid and see the terror tearing her up from within.
PRODUCTION DETAILS
THE MAID is a colourful and downright creepy spookfest replete with Teochew opera, freaked-out Filipino maids and haunting Seventh-month vibes. Story starts with a Filipino maid starting work with an opera troupe family on the first day of the Chinese Seventh Month, also known as the Hungry Ghosts Festival. Oblivious to the Chinese traditional customs during the Seventh Month, she trespasses onto the spiritual boundaries and begins her series of strange encounters.
“After producing over 15 movies, including the successful THE EYE and THE EYE 2, we feel confident to work with a local director on a local story to produce our very own horror genre. We hope to offer to the international horror fans what THE RING and NANGNAK did, but we hope to do so with a Singapore edge,” says Daniel Yun, CEO MediaCorp Raintree Pictures and Executive Producer of the movie.
THE MAID is the first regional collaboration involving the Hong Kong’s Dream Movie Entertainment Overseas Limited, Philippines’ MovPix International Inc. and Singapore’s Media Development Authority with MediaCorp Raintree Pictures driving the production in Singapore. It will also be the second film to be produced under the MDA-MediaCorp Raintree Pictures 10-Movie Memorandum Of Understanding.
Helming the production will be Singaporean director Kelvin Tong, best known for his award-winning movie EATING AIR. Kelvin is a brand name in cutting-edge Singapore cinema. THE MAID will be Kelvin’s first attempt at the horror genre.
Alessandra De Rossi, an award winning Filipino actress, will be the leading actress in this movie. At only 20 years of age, Alessandra has already received the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance in the Philippine movie HUBOG and was nominated in the Best Actress category at virtually all the film festivals in which the film premiered for SMALL VOICES.
THE MAID will also star MediaCorp artistes Chen Shu Cheng, Hong Hui Fang and local newcomer Benny Soh. This will be Shu Cheng’s first leading role in a movie and Hui Fang’s second movie after her debut in THAT ONE NOT ENOUGH.
The movie will be shot on 35 mm and filmed entirely in Singapore. Principle photography began on 20 September 2004 and lasted for 35 days.
The Maid 女佣 Photos
•August 18, 2005 • Leave a CommentShooting the hungry ghost festival proves to be very enlightening. Those of us that never bothered with the temple visits and religious customs really learnt a lot during these few months. We also discovered the stories behind all the artifacts found on a “Ge Tai” stage. And all the “do”s and “don’t”s in order to keep the spirits “happy”.
“Oh no… An accident in the 7th Month… That’s not good…”
“Can you help me find my ball…”
“Who’s there?”
“Ong Ah Ong…”
“There’s someone in the wardrobe…”
“What are you looking at…”
“Let’s go home…”
“Looking for me?”
“Please… I don’t want to marry Ah Soon…”
“Esther…”
“Help me…”
“Rosa must die…”
“Life Is Like A Teochew Opera”
“Say yes Rosa…”
“Hurry… 7th Month is ending…”
Mr Teo played by Chen Shu Cheng
Mrs Teo played by Hong Hui Fang
Ah Soon played by Benny Soh
Rosa played by Alessandra de Rossi
The Altar
The Wedding Ceremony
The Head of the Household
The Last Ceremony
Ah Soon Returns
The Skeleton In The Drum
The Suicide
The Teo Family
The Temple at dusk
The Temple at night
Our Camera Operator Mary
Our DOP Lucas Jodogne
Director in Thought
Kelvin Tong 