RIFLE RANGE BOY

Rain Town (Cantonese, English; 2024) Director: Tunku Mona Riza   Our needs, dreams, ambitions, and desires to ensure the best for our children and peace in the family are universal. We all yearn for the same thing.  The most exciting thing about the movie is that it was produced and directed by two Malaysian Malays, but there was a single inkling of Malayness in its setting, spoken dialogue and props. It went on to premiere at the  Silk Road International Film Festival in Fuzhou, China.  Set in the wettest town in Malaysia, Taiping, hence the title Rain Town, it is a favourite pastime for the local retirees to bet on whether it would rain that day. It follows one of the betters, a proud Mr Choo, to his home. He is a disciplinarian, a domineering figure who runs his home like an army regiment.  He is a father of 3 adult kids, two men and a lady. His wife, a former Ms Taiping, an Anglo-Chinese, had fitted into the family as a docile, all-embracing mother who is th...

Abang Adik @ Pudu Youngsters (Malay/Cantonese/Sign Language; 2023) Director: Jin Ong When you wander around the wet markets or back lanes of many major cities, you find a buzzing economy independent of the one considered by economists and the national budget. There is a parallel economy going on there.  You see many moving around, working intensely, and doing things others think are dirty, dangerous and demeaning. You see people washing dirty dishes at the back of the restaurant, slaughtering chickens and carting around loads of vegetables or sundry goods. They are invisible to most people's eyes. And they are paid a pittance in cash. These transactions are not recorded; hence, they escape the revenue departments. They are voiceless and live below the radar because, on paper, they are persona non grata. They may be undocumented foreign workers, economic migrants who overstayed or refugees. Intertwined in this group are Malaysian citizens themselves, who, at birth or due to other re...

2046 (Cantonese; 2004) Writer, Director: Wong Kar-Wai Our life is like a moving speed-train. We catch glimpses of experiences that excite us and poof, it is gone. We yearn to immortalise the pleasant encounter's memory, but unfortunately, it is not always possible. The journey itself is so unpredictable that the last delightful experience may not be the best, the best may yet be on the horizon. Or maybe, that was it! Oh, life is so uncertain.  Are all memories traces of tears and is nostalgia a bad thing? Does living in the memory of the past a wrong thing? Things that we learn in the past are the guiding lights for future battles, but somehow sometimes we still feel we accidentally let something slip by too prematurely or inadvertently. Regrets we may have a few.  For these, the writer creates a fictitious world/city/future where memories are permanent and can be re-captured. Nobody knew for sure if such a place existed but, nobody who went there ever returned. That is, excep...

In the Mood for Love (Cantonese; 2000) Director: Wong Kar-wai This film must surely be a fruit of a labour of love. It is such a joyful experience to watch as the viewers are cradled back to a Shanghainese community's claustrophobic surroundings in 1962 Hong Kong. It is a story of a close-knit group tenant, specifically of two couples, in an apartment building. Two spouses who are often left alone by their busy working partners end up developing feelings for each other. The busy partners in real fact are embroiled in an affair, between themselves. The scorned spouses discover a common interest, create a platonic relationship but soon realise it is romantic. They resist the temptations to be as low as their partners, despite the circumstances of time and the lure of their biological attractions. The theme of this story segues nicely into a discussion I had with my friends recently. What is this thing about marriage? Is it a mere a public declaration of a property much like when Vasc...

Days of Being Wild (1990) Director: Wong Kar-Wai What is the thing that keeps a person plunge deep into a relationship so toxic and still longs to be embroiled in a never-ending imbroglio of heartaches and melancholy? Is it just physical attraction or a sense of achievement, a kind of trophy? Is it some kind of masochism or playing victim to gain attention? Is this the same power of love that made King Edward VII abdicate his crown for a divorcee with two living ex-husbands? Is it merely a hormonal surge at the spring of one's youth or a debt that needed to be settled if relationships bring in baggage and its encumbrances? Something that springs up quite so suddenly may fizzle out just as quick when the fluff disappears. Then what? Do it all again? But then, by then, there would come too many webs of entanglement and spoils of love that are just too difficult to detach. It appears that it is a play of time. Invariably, with the passage of time, the ludicrousness of all these may ap...