Sex.Violence.FamilyValues
Sex.Violence.FamilyValues
Singapore, 2012, colour, 16:9, 46 mins.
Director: Guo Zhixuan 郭智轩 [Ken Kwek].
Rating: 6/10.
Uneven satire of Singaporean conservatism only really sizzles in its middle episode.
STORY
Singapore, the present day. I: A mother, Carol Lee (Chen Huiling), is called in to meet the teacher (Susan Tordoff) of her five-year-old son Oliver (Matthew Loo), following a series of strange drawings he’s been doing at school. II: A porn director, Ken (Peng Yaoshun), tries to shoot a micro-budget production starring a nervous Indian actor, Vivian (Vadi PVSS), and a self-professed teenage “virgin”, Susie (Zhang Li’en). III: A Malay bouncer, Mohamad, aka Momo (Osman Sulaiman), is shocked to discover his daughter, Anna (Sylvia Ratonel), is a contestant in a pole-dancing competition being held at the nightclub where he works.
REVIEW
Singaporean writer-director Guo Zhixuan 郭智軒 [Ken Kwek] – who penned The Blue Mansion (2009) by Wei Mingyao 魏铭耀 [Glen Goei], and Kidnapper 绑匪 (2010) and It’s a Great Great World 大世界 (2011), both by Tang Yongjian 唐永健 [Kelvin Tong] – must be thanking some of Southeast Asia’s censorship boards for all the free publicity over his anthology short Sex.Violence.FamilyValues. Banned in Singapore as soon as it opened in Oct 2012, then un-banned the following spring with a R21 rating (and eight seconds of dialogue mutes and bleeps in the middle episode), the 46-minute film has just [as of Mar 2013] been banned in Malaysia, raising a harmless satire of Singaporean conservatism to a celebrity status that Guo has eagerly embraced in its marketing. Comprising three unrelated stories – untitled, but referred to in some sources as Cartoons, Porn Masala and The Bouncer [under which titles they were previously shown at various festivals] – the English-language production is smoothly put together at a technical level and much more naturally played and dialogued than many conventional Singaporean movies, with almost no use of Singlish or regional dialect. Dramatically, however, it’s a more uneven ride.
The best segment by far is the 15-minute middle one, which already screened (as Porn Masala) at the Gotham Screen festival in Oct 2011. A laugh-out-loud satire of unthinking racist epithets, the segment is given extra heft by having local star Peng Yaoshun 彭耀顺 [Adrian Pang] playing a micro-budget/mega-ego porn director who casually insults his nerdy Indian leading man in a stream of wonderfully written dialogue. Nicely underplaying the role of a teenage actress claiming to be a shy virgin is Chinese Malaysian Zhang Li’en 张丽恩, who comes through strongly in the latter stages, while Singaporean comedienne Pam Oei is fine as the blank-faced, podgy “producer”. The whole segment would not have worked so well without the counter-casting of Peng as a foul-mouthed moron and the actor’s natural delivery of the loaded lines.
The surrounding segments are watchable but do not have any of the same satirical bite. The seven-minute opening one [which first showed at various US festivals in late 2011 under the title Cartoons] is basically a shaggy-dog story leading up to a single punch-line, as an outwardly respectable mum (nicely played by Chen Huiling 陈惠玲) is confronted by her son’s kindergarten teacher with some of his school drawings, while the final segment (the longest, at 22 minutes [first shown at the Gotham Screen festival in Oct 2012, as The Bouncer]) is an over-extended mini-drama about a nightclub bouncer (Malay TV actor Osman Sulaiman) who’s shocked that his daughter (Singaporean singer-model Sylvia Ratonel) has entered a pole-dancing competition.
Overall, the trio of stories sit uneasily together as a single film. SVFV is watchable partly thanks to good-looking visuals by UK d.p. Shelley Hirst (Peggy Su!, 1997; The Wedding Tackle, 2000), but it’s regrettable that the verve and bite of the middle episode isn’t paralleled in the two others.
CREDITS
Presented by The Butter Factory (SG).
Script: Guo Zhixuan [Ken Kwek]. Photography: Shelley Hirst. Editing: Chow Wai Thong, Xiao Yixin, Su Zhiyun [Natalie Soh]. Music: Huang Fushan [Joe Ng]. Art direction: Deng Miqi, Kelley Cheng. Sound: Arnold San Juan, See Tong Wai, Bartholomew Ho, Nelson Pereira. Pole-dancing choreography: Linna Tan.
Cast: I: Matthew Loo (Oliver Lee), Chen Huiling (Carol Lee, his mother), Susan Tordoff (Mrs. Evans, his teacher), Caryn Ong (Susie, his classmate). II: Peng Yaoshun [Adrian Pang] (Ken, director), Vadi PVSS (Vivian, actor), Pam Oei (Lynn, producer), Zhang Li’en (Susie, actress), Guo Zhixuan [Ken Kwek] (Tiong, production assistant). III: Osman Sulaiman (Mohamad/Momo, bouncer), Sylvia Ratonel (Anna, Mohamad’s daughter), Chen Qionghua (Li Wen), Vanessa Vanderstraaten (Rachel, Anna’s friend), Benjamin Heng (Vince, head of security), Guo Zhixuan [Ken Kwek] (thief), Zhang Li’en (older Susie).
Premiere: Singapore, 5 Oct 2012.
Release: Singapore, 14 Mar 2013.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 27 Mar 2013.)