Photo Courtesy of: Golden Village Pictures
One of the initial directions Malaysian director Adrian Teh had when he wanted to film a remake of the Chinese sleeper hit 'Goodbye Mr Loser' was to cast new faces as much as possible. After about three months and auditioning over 300 people, he finally found his lead actors for his version of 'Goodbye Mr. Loser': Singapore-based actor Ian Fang, Malaysian model Hoon Mei Sim, and beauty queen Anjoe Koh.
“Finding Yi Bai (Fang’s character in the movie) was tough. We couldn’t find anyone from Malaysia and when I saw Ian’s audition video -recommended by Fang’s manager- I felt that he was very suitable for the lead role, and invited him to Kuala Lumpur to do another round of casting,” said Teh. “I felt very pleased when Ian read the scenes. He matched certain characteristics of what I envisioned the character Yi Bai to be… that’s why I chose him”
“This is quite a new experience for me,” shared the 27-year-old MediaCorp actor.
Fang plays a middle-aged nobody who magically went back in time to his school days. The carefree and bold student tries to fix the mistakes he made and achieve all the fame and success he missed out on the first time around.
Photo Courtesy of: Golden Village Pictures
(Read our review of the film!)
Audiences are used to seeing Fang in ‘bad boy’ or ‘rich man’s son’ roles, delivers a different side of him with this movie - a more comedic role as compared to his past characters on the small screen.
He shared: “As an actor, all kinds of roles appeal to me as I would like to experiment with it. I do have preferences when it comes to specific kind of roles, but I don’t think too much if they are dramatic or comedic characters.”
“I like this industry and I like this job. As long as it’s not something against the law, I will go for it. I don’t think too much about it.”
The original Chinese comedy was released in September 2015 and became an enormous sleeper hit in China that grossed over US$2226 million. Asked if the cast is pressured over their film’s box office sales, they denied, explaining that ‘it’s up to fate’.
Photo Courtesy of: Golden Village Pictures
“One of the reasons why the original film did well because of the word of mouth it had. I feel it’s important that the locals (Malaysia and Singapore) will support it and spread the word,” said Hoon.
“We can’t beat the Chinese market,” explained Teh. “My first thought when I want to do a remake is that it has to be done in a different approach. It’s pointless to do a remake when it’s exactly the same (as the original).”
He further shared about the changes made to the rebooted film: “I want to keep the essence of the original, but add in a few backstories of characters, especially the lead character Yi Bai. Apart from making it more ‘youthful’ and appealing to the local audiences, I managed to give the Yi Bai a tweaked storyline where his backstory and motivations are different.”
“If you watched the original film, you can tell that it’s very much alike, but yet it feels a somewhat different.”
Goodbye Mr. Loser opens InCinemas 30 March 2017!