RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Father (2020) The good die young, they say. So we look sentimentally at the 'Club 27' and bemoan their premature departure from the world of music; we lament the loss of many of their yet composed pieces. We remember them forever as the spirited and creative maestros they were. But, on the other hand, we abhor the many who had obviously overstayed their welcome; a particular nonagenarian two-time ex-Prime Minister comes to mind. It seems the longer we seem to stay alive, the further we get away from the public likeability scale.  Perhaps we tolerate the old because of fear of what would become of us. In the hope of hope, we think all the good deeds will somehow be recorded and duly reciprocated by the Universe! Maybe, we are struggling to stay afloat in this Ocean of Life that we are looking for support in what we are doing. With the wisdom of having traversed similar paths, we secretly wish that they would give a nod of approval to our actions.  Jim Morrison, Amy Winehous...

The partially completed Kek Lok Si temple in Penang in 1905. It holds the dark secret of a melancholic monk with self-inflicted wounds after his tireless endeavours to rebuild the temple was sabotaged and bad-mouthed. In its annals too, woven are the intriguing narrations of the selfless services of a young Dr Wu Lien Teh who nursed him back to health. What is a sacrifice? Is it an overused word with its meaning taken for granted? A suicide bomber is making a sacrifice when he decides to blow himself to smithereens to make a statement or to martyr himself for the good of those who share the same belief as him? Is he not being selfish as his own remunerations that await him in the afterlife? Is he being selfless or selfish when he plunges the red button? Is the symbolism of death on The Cross the ultimate sacrifice for the human race? Is it true altruism when able bodies with the spring of youth ahead of them give up their earthly pleasures to serve God and the downtrodden? Can ...

A sane person would not accept that what he is doing will amount to anything. How is his suffering and sacrifice is any way going to change the course of the universe? Are the forces of Nature going to melted by his predicament and be moved by his pain? The realist will say that the apparently chaotic and sometimes cruel turn of events is choreographed to maintain law and order in the universe! But... That is not going to stop him. Three years ago, his conjugal union with his loved one produced an equally charming offspring. Perfect by every sense and too good to be true. He started thinking he must have something right in his life to beget something so right. His son was well liked by everyone including The Maker that The Maker decided to keep his handiwork to himself. It was all so sudden and the flashbacks are so vivid and surreal. Like a bizarre dream sequence where things happened right under your nose and you are too paralysed to react, his loved one, at one instant was playing...

The Quiet Duel (静かなる決闘, Shizukanaru Kettō, 1949) Director: Akira Kurosawa Fancy seeing a scrubbed up surgeon with a cigarette on his lip? If Toshiro Mifune is usually seen as rash hotblooded gangster or samurai in most movies, this Kurosawa's regular star is seen portraying a quiet tight-lipped conscientious doctor. His co-star is another regular, Takashi Shimura as his father. The quiet duel in the title refers to the constant struggle within one's self whether to satisfy his own desires versus the moral codes set up by the society or conscience. And sometimes the price to pay can be enormous.  The story starts in a rundown military hole-ridden leaking hospital where an overworked sleep-deprived surgeon who is fighting against his biological needs of sleep and rest tries desperately to save his war-stricken patients. With limited helping hand, he somehow pulls through. In one of these stressful situations, he injures himself with an open scalpel. Fearing for t...