ARTICLE
New local movie starring Julie Tan, Richie Koh and Andie Chen revolves around Feng Shui
By Flora / 24 Jun 2019 (Monday)
Photo Credit: mm2 Entertainment
Singaporeans can be pretty pantang (superstitious) at times - such as believing that you can’t point at the moon or else your ears will be cut off. While the belief of Feng Shui can be argued both ways - science or superstition - it is ultimately up to you how much you choose to believe these divinations.
While mm2 Entertainment’s latest movie on Feng Shui isn’t going to dispel nor promote the over 6,000-year-old pseudoscience, it sure gives you an insight as to what and how this ancient Chinese discipline is about.
Titled ‘Fatekeepers’, the movie centres around a group of youngsters according to the various Feng Shui elements: Fire, Earth, Metal, Wood and Water. When the five members unite, they discover five powerful pearls hidden in the country’s core and successfully change their fates. But this causes unprecedented disasters for the country - Live fish wash up on shore, hailstorms ...and an imminent typhoon is about to hit.
Photo Credit: mm2 Entertainment
Directed by Daniel Yam (Wonder Boy), the film stars Julie Tan (Jin, Metal), Noah Yap (Mu Mu, Wood), Regene Lim (Swee, Water), Richie Koh (Lie, Fire) and Andie Chen (Earth) as the main ensemble cast, along with Mimi Choo, who plays Lie’s senile grandmother.
The script is from Kenneth Hu, one of the 10 selected participants in mm2’s 2016 Scriptwriter’s Lab programme to write a feature-length script.
During the lensing ceremony held last Friday, we talked to the main cast and director on the film’s preparation and the chemistry among the cast.
For starters, we know that there is going to be a romantic story arc between Tan and Koh’s characters which Tan describes it as ‘charming’.
“There are times where you just connect with some people and have that feeling of ‘love at first sight’, knowing that he or she is ‘the one’. For Lie and I, there is that kind of feeling between the two characters… but as to whether we’ll get together, you got to check out the movie for yourself!” quipped Tan.
The 26-year-old actress and restaurateur shared that she has been ‘looking forward to working with Richie’. “It’s our first time working together and I’m pretty excited. I have heard a lot of good things about you (Richie).”
To build up their chemistry, director Yam did a workshop with the cast members and asked for the two actors to stare at each other’s eyes. “To be honest, I was afraid of their chemistry at first. Sometimes it’s either you have it or you don’t. There was a moment when they looked at each other and it felt like time stopped. That was when I really felt that these two have great chemistry together.”
Photo Credit: mm2 Entertainment
The cast will also have to undergo hand-movement choreography training (think detailed hand-finger movements used in Marvel’s Doctor Strange) and stunt training for there will be a lot of wire work involved.
For Chen, though it will not be his first time suspended in mid-air, he felt that “it’s going to be more hardcore”.
“Regene and I are adrenaline junkies and it’s our first time doing wire work, so for us, it’s really exciting,” shared Yap, who had to learn a sport that many would have assumed he has experience in. “I actually have to learn how to play basketball too… which I had never played before. In fact, I had never touched basketball a day in my life since yesterday for the basketball training,” admitted Yap, to the surprise of his co-stars.
“I only played the arcade one. That’s the closest I’d come in contact with basketball.”
Photo Credit: mm2 Entertainment
While no release date has been set yet, we can expect Fatekeepers to hit the big screens next year. (We bet there has to be a lot of calculations to find the most auspicious date to release it in theatres...)