Ah Boys to Men

新兵正传

Singapore/Malaysia, 2012, colour, 1.85:1, 108 mins.

Director: Liang Zhiqiang 梁智强 [Jack Neo].

Rating: 6/10.

Comedy about army recruits starts gangbusters but loses its sharpness in the second half.

STORY

Singapore, the present day. Spoiled rich kid Cao Junjie (Chen Wei’en) has an argument with his girlfriend Amy (Hong Qiuting) shortly before he is due to be called up for compulsory two-year National Service. His father (Liu Qianyi) says he should be proud to do it but his mother (Hong Ailing) tries various wheezes to try to get him exempted, including visiting an expensive western doctor (Bernie Utchenik) and lobbying her local member of parliament (Lin Zhenhao) but is unsuccessful. Her younger brother (Wang Lei), who is against it, tells him a story of how, when he was called up in the 1970s, a fellow recruit feigned madness and got away with it. Another candidate, Zeng Xielang (Lin Junliang), wants to be the best and get into Officer Cadet School to make his mother (Ye Limei) proud. A third, working-class street-wise trader Wen Yingbi (Ye Rongyao), uses his call-up as an excuse to have sex with his girlfriend Mayoki (Luo Lingqi). The three, all put into Ninja Company, meet on their first day at the training camp on Pulau Tekong (Tekong Island), as well as Indian recruit Muthu Shanmugaratnam (Aizuddin Nasser). Their platoon sergeant, Alex Wang (Zhang Zhiyang), constantly gives them a hard time, and especially Cao Junjie who hates the army and is always looking for ways of ducking out of things. After two weeks of basic military training, the new recruits all get a day off to meet their families. Cao Junjie discovers that Amy wants to dump him, as she is now dating an army officer; she also tells him she’s going abroad on the weekend. Back at the camp, Cao Junjie tries to fake an illness so he can get sick leave and try to win her back at the airport.

REVIEW

With its spectacular, 13-minute opening, writer-director Ah Boys to Men 新兵正传 appears to finally take Singaporean film-making into an entirely fresh, international arena, as well as ramping up the customary satirical comedy of film-maker Liang Zhiqiang 梁智强 [Jack Neo] to a new level. Thereafter, however, it’s immediately clear that the movie is another local affair – basically for the Singapore/Malaysia market, where it’s been a sizeable hit – with Liang’s familiar ingredients: a domestic issue (here, compulsory National Service), anti-government jabs, pun-laden dialogue that slides between Singlish, Hokkien and Mandarin, parodies of film cliches and, at the end, a large dose of moral lecturing to keep the authorities happy.

For its jaw-dropping opening alone, the film deserves an extra point, as well as for its superior production values: this is Liang’s slickest production to date, largely thanks to the camerawork by Hong Kong d.p. Lin Guohua 林国华 [Ardy Lam]. But after a very funny opening hour, full of sharp dialogue and laugh-out-loud comic moments, the movie loses momentum during its second half, especially when Liang gives rein to his weakest tendency of sappy melodrama and heavy-handed moralising. In Being Human 做人 (2010) he got the balance just about right, and that film was helped by the lead playing of Li Guohuang 李国煌 [Mark Lee] – a veteran of the Liang “family” and still Singapore’s sharpest comic talent at portraying local, streetwise characters. In Ah Boys, Li’s absence is sharply felt: Wang Lei 王雷 has a good stab at a Li-like role, sending up local idiocies in broad Hokkien, but he’s only in a few scenes.

The principal comic drivers in the first hour are Hong Ailing 红爱玲 [Irene Ang], who is terrific as a domineering mum trying to get special treatment for her spoiled son, and Zhang Zhiyang 张智扬 (who also composed the title song) as the lads’ sarcastic sergeant, Alex Wang. The main quartet of new recruits is played OK by young actors Chen Wei’en 陈伟恩, Lin Junliang 林俊良, Ye Rongyao 叶荣耀 and Wang Weiliang 王伟良, with Ye the most flavoursome as a streetwise trader nicknamed “IP Man”. But it’s the subtext to the scenes, rather than the performances themselves, that provides the main comedy: National Service as a metaphor for Singaporean life (getting permission, taking punishment, apportioning blame) and the armed forces as a kind of game that (as the opening makes clear) is kind of pointless at a military level.

As in many of Liang’s films, one can sense a sharp writing talent that is, unfortunately, only willing to go to a certain point in its satirical critique, and feels the need to balance every pointed comic jab with a concomitant shoring up of the status quo. Given the superb opening, it’s all the more the pity that Ah Boys lacks any real follow-through – though it would inded have been surprising, given its sensitive subject of National Service. There’s still a lot to read between the lines, though, even though it doesn’t always end up explicitly on screen.

Horror film 23:59 (2011) was set among new recruits, and based on a true incident on the same Tekong Island. But one has to go back to the enjoyable Army Daze: The Movie (1996), by Wang Jingsheng 王景生 [Ong Keng Sen], for another comedy about Singaporean National Service. Based on a play, that film was more pure entertainment, without any messaging. Ah Boys, which is largely centred on one recruit, Chen’s spoiled rich kid who “learns” from his experience, initially aims higher but ends up succeeding less.

[The film’s Chinese title means “The True Story of the New Recruits”.] The ending is a montage trailing Ah Boys to Men 2 新兵正传II (2013), shot at the same time.

CREDITS

Presented by J Team Productions (SG), MM2 Entertainment (MY). Produced by J Team Productions (SG), MM2 Entertainment (MY).

Script: Liang Zhiqiang [Jack Neo], Sun Yiqun. Photography: Lin Guohua [Ardy Lam], Zhao Weixian, Wang Junfa. Editing: Yan Wenzhong. Music direction: Mai Ruli. Title song: Zhang Zhiyang. Art direction: Mo Zhuanghao. Costumes: Yang Xiuling. Sound: Luo Lishan, Zeng Jingxiang [Kinson Tsang], Li Yaoqiang. Action: Liu Hongyi. Visual effects: Fang Weijie (VividThree).

Cast: Chen Wei’en (Cao Junjie/Ken), Lin Junliang (Zeng Xielang/Aloysius/Wayang King), Ye Rongyao (Wen Yingbi/IP Man), Wang Weiliang (Wang Luobang/Lobang King), Zhang Zhiyang (Alex Wang, platoon sergeant), Hong Ailing [Irene Ang] (Cao Junjie’s mother), Liu Qianyi (Cao Junjie’s father), Wang Lei (Cao Junjie’s uncle), Justin Dominic Misson (1970s platoon sergeant), Aizuddin Nasser (Muthu Shanmugaratnam), Ridhwan Azman (Ismail Mohammed), You Yamin (Cao Junjie’s grandmother), Li Wenlong (Jed Huang, sergeant), Xie Zhen’gang (officer-in-command), Chen Weiming (Kenneth Pang, sergeant), Wu Qingliang (Ming), Daniel Ang (Cheng), Feng Wenna (Sun Liliang), Liu Xutao (Liao Kong Chai), Lin Zhenwen (Sam Too), Rovin Rajenthram (Kumar Krishnan), Biwa Mastura (Maria), Hong Qiuting (Amy, Cao Junjie’s girlfriend), Chen Zhiwei, Qi Xian (reservist soldiers), Li Feihui (reservist platoon commander), Shen Weijun (Robinson Road commander), Lin Lizhu (mother in family bomb shelter), Ye Limei (Macy Jin, Zeng Xielang’s mother), Chen Tianwen (Zeng Xielang’s father), Lawrence Kim, Jaz Lai, Ryan Chieh, Bennet Neo, Douglas Foo (CEO reservist soldiers), Deng Jiajia, Deng Sisi (Cao Junjie’s twin sisters), Luo Lingqi (Mayoki, Weng Yingbi’s girlfriend), Xiu Ping (Wen Yingbi’s grandmother), Shawn Galloway (commanding officer), Wu Jianping (platoon commander), Huang Zhenfu (company sergeant major), Bernie Utchenik (western doctor), Lin Zhenhao (Ong, member of parliament).

Release: Singapore, 8 Nov 2012; Malaysia, 20 Dec 2012.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 6 Feb 2013.)