The wife and I had the privilege of watching the film 美满人生 Singapore Dreaming (see also the film's blog) at its special gala world premiere at Lido One last night. Written and directed by our schoolmate Colin Goh and his partner (in life and film) Woo Yen Yen, and produced by Woffles Wu, it is one solid movie about Singapore, about families, and about life in our little island.
Miyagi and I had lunch with Colin last week at Katong, and it was fun catching up and talking cock. When we last met almost a year ago, he was in the midst of shooting, and we chatted about the movie too. I recall him telling us about the challenges he faced in getting the film done. So we were very thrilled to be catching up again over wanton mee, and finding out that the movie was going to be having its premiere in a few days time.
I can tell you right now, when it starts screening commercially, go and watch it.
Before the film began, Executive Producer Woffles Wu gave a short speech, and the wife turned to me and whispered, "Isn't he that famous plastic surgeon?"
"Yes," I said, "that's him."
"So he must know a lot of celebrities here tonight then," she said, alluding to the many femes people spotted at the event.
So witty, the wife.
You will find much in the film that resonates. Particularly outstanding was the performance by Yeo Yann Yann, who plays Mei, the daughter. The other thing that made my wife and I smile was the car driven by Lim Yu Beng, who plays CK, Mei's ex-army-regular husband, because we had the same car when we were but a pair of newly-weds. His Suzuki Wagon R was even in the same dark green colour. The only difference was that my Wagon was zhnged with sports rims and other er, enhancements. Man, I missed my little three-door 600cc runabout.
Also, to my delight, the whole film was subtitled in English, partly because a lot of the dialogue was in Hokkien, but also because the English spoken was mostly Singlish. This kind of subtitle thing sure must have one. Wait the ang mohs catch no ball, mah.
After the film credits started rolling (with a minor hiccup with the sound, and also some wacky PA system behaviour), the audience broke into spontaneous applause. The lights went up, Miyagi and I looked at each other and Miyagi did a thumbs-up. I nodded, "Good ah?"
We left our womenfolk for a while to squeeze our way to the front so that we could convey our congratulations.
Colin looked at me and smiled cheekily, "Can or not?"
I said, "Can lah." And we laughed.
Understatement of the year, man. More than "can". Very the "can".
Well done, dude, and congratulations.
