Malaysian director Adrian Teh (郑建国) seemed to have done something cheeky in his latest film, THE WEDDING DIARY. A particular scene in the film caught our attention, and we wondered if it was an attempt by Adrian Teh to poke fun at Singapore director Jack Neo (梁智强)...
[Image of director Adrian Teh (2nd from left)]
We won't reveal too much about this hilarious scene, except to say that it sees John Cheng aka "Ah Nan" making a phone call to Jack Neo, and complaining about the many things he has to do as part of Neo's filmmaking crew, such as taking up the role of an actor, assistant director, and prop manager during production!
Is Adrian Teh trying to imply something here, however indirect it seems to be?
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InCinemas clarified the message behind this scene during a roundtable interview together with director Adrian Teh, Kara Hui (惠英红) and Zhu Houren during the film's press conference on Monday, 6 February.
"My feeling is that the scene reflects the collective difficulties filmmakers face when making films in Singapore. Many of the crew members have to take up several jobs during production," Zhu Houren started explaining first. He also hoped that through this scene, the media, and those in the film industry would better understand the problems that they face during production.
(InCinemas Blog: Ah Niu proposes to Elanne Kwong on stage at Jurong Point! - 9 Feb 2012)
[Image of stars Kara Hui and Zhu Houren at the roundtable interview]
Adrian Teh then took some time to talk about the scene. "It's not only Singapore filmmakers who are facing this problem, Malaysian filmmakers also face the same problem. As the film industries are not big, and funding limited, we are restricted in terms of manpower." Teh also mentioned that he was the one who came out with this particular scene, and in order to localize it to Singaporeans, Jack Neo came to his mind.
(Read our InCinemas review for The Wedding Diary - by Eternality Tan)
"I'm a Malaysian, not Singaporean and I didn't dare to offend Jack Neo. So I brought up this idea to the Person of the Year, Lim Teck (director of Clover Films, which had released both THE WEDDING DIARY and Jack Neo's WE NOT NAUGHTY), if it's okay, and he replied that Neo is quite open-minded, so it should be fine," Teh added.
Hmm.. And we wonder if Jack Neo has caught this particular Ah Nan scene.. Well.. Do take note of this scene when you're watching The Wedding Diary, and the rest of the film on the big screen! THE WEDDING DIARY is now showing InCinemas. It is rated PG (Some sexual references).
(Check the movie showtimes of The Wedding Diary at all cineplexes here!)