BUDDYZ TV Spots (a TV series of 5-minute episodes I directed for Astro Ria)

I mentioned about BUDDYZ last month, it's a Malay TV series of 5-minute episodes that I directed back in March starring Alif Satar, Syed Ali, Erin Malek and Elliza Razak, with special guest appearances by Shaheizy Sam (the guy pretty much appeared in almost every single episode as a different character).

Although I worked very closely with my editor and producers for the post-production (I returned to Tokyo right after the shoot, so had to do everything via email or Twitter), I haven't watched the finished work. So it was quite interesting to monitor what viewers thought of the series via Twitter. Was very flattered to see an increasing amount of tweets for the show, and that many of them had nice things to say about it. (obviously, BUDDYZ is a clear departure from the melancholic and "arthouse" films that I've always been making).

The final 16th episode is airing on TV tonight at 8:55pm (with repeats at 11pm)

UPDATED: Adding a playlist featuring both the first and second seasons of Buddyz

10 great Father's Day films that you might not have seen

Today is Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, dad. Dad is going to be at a TV shoot today, accompanied by Mom and my sister, it's going to be a good one. (my dad is a judge in a AMERICAN IDOL-like Chinese singing show, however, unlike idol, the contestants are restricted to 45 and above. Quite a popular show that recently turned my dad into a celebrity of sorts)

Since my lifelong love for cinema was influenced by Dad, and I would never been a filmmaker if he were indifferent towards films, I think it's fitting that I try to commemorate this day by listing out a number of great Father's Day films that you might not have seen (I know I haven't).

To make things simpler for me, I'm restricting this list to only Asian films. (I'll do another list if this goes well, haha)

Discovering the world of radio plays (and dramas)

It all started from a phone conversation with Maiko the Producer (she produced my short films "Kingyo" and "Exhalation") a few weeks ago. She had been working at NHK Osaka for the past two years, earlier this year she was involved in the hit morning drama "CARNATION" as an assistant director.

She asked whether I wanted to try my hand in writing a radio drama. It was an interesting preposition. A storytelling medium I was entirely unfamiliar with, but seemingly filled with possibilities.

The first thing that came to my mind was, of course, Orson Welles' famous 1938 WARS OF THE WORLD radio drama, believed to be probably the most famous radio drama of all time.

Rest in peace, Kaneto Shindo

The Japanese director Kaneto Shindo passed away yesterday at the age of 100.

Theo Angelopoulos mini-retrospective and documentary

Last week, just a day before I headed off to Ningbo China for a short trip over the weekend, I walked past the nearby arthouse theater Waseda Shochiku and paused when I noticed that they were screening three Theo Angelopoulos films in a span of two weeks.



The films were:

Why film festivals matter to me

(UPDATED: This blog post was initially a repost of an email on the Malaysian Cinema mailing list from Venice Film Festival programmer Paolo Bertolin asking for the means to contact FINAS (the National Film Development Corporation of Malaysia). Was hoping that posting this in public would help him get a reply.

He got it, problem solved, so as per his request, I'll remove his email exchanges in the mailing list. And expand more on my last few paragraphs regarding my thoughts about film festivals. It's sort of a love letter for film festivals, perhaps.)

Ying Liang, James Cameron, The New Yorker

I wrote about Ying Liang's horrifying situation with the Chinese authorities a few days ago, the responses were surprising. Although many of our friends in the circle were already aware of the situation and had communicated with him on Facebook, other friends of mine were very nice to help spread the news around on Twitter and Facebook. This news was picked up by Richard Brody of The New Yorker.

Brody had written in the magazine about Ying Liang's previous films, which, to tell you the truth, I haven't really seen. (I'll rectify that soon), and in his blog post, Brody had many nice things to say about Ying Liang's films.

Ying Liang - A Chinese filmmaker's plight

Two weeks ago, I translated Professor Si-Tu Zhao Dun's words of wisdom about how film directing as a profession does not really exist shared by my friend, the Chinese filmmaker Ying Liang.

BUDDYZ on Astro Ria

BUDDYZ is a series of 5-minute minisodes on the Astro Ria channel presented by Digi. It stars Alif Satar, Syed Ali, Erin Malek and Elliza Razak, with special appearances by Shaheizy Sam.

I actually directed it. (You might remember back in March that I mentioned about directing a Malay TV series. Yes, it does look rather different from my usual output) The series finally came out on Tuesday (1st of May), followed by the second episode on Thursday (2nd of May).

Sadly, being in Japan, I can't really watch any of them.

When what you desire in life bleeds into video games...

A week ago, after having a rough cut of my latest short film shown to financiers and clients, I decided to take a sabbatical. (Usually, after a film shoot, I would immediately jump into putting the footage together, editing them, seeing whether what I got had been what I've envisioned, or, perhaps I got something better than I hoped. But once I'm done with a first rough cut, I would for myself to adhere to usual industry beliefs, and to take a break from the footage so that I could come back to it with fresh eyes, approaching the materials with much more objectivity and distance. Because of the freeform improvisational nature of my usual filmmaking methods, I tend to "make discoveries" of my films through post-production)

Therefore, during this break, I intended to just do some researching, finding inspiration from other films regarding the editing, finishing up a book that I was reading (currently reading: Italo Calvino's THE BARON IN THE TREES), follow the NBA Playoffs.

Oh, and maybe play a game...

So I installed SKYRIM.

Film directing as a profession does not really exist

I saw this posted on Facebook by the Chinese filmmaker Ying Liang. He was passing to his students words of wisdom from his own teacher, Professor Si-Tu Zhao Dun.



The whole thing is in Chinese, so it's actually better if you can read it in its original language as my translation will be pretty shaky:

Here's the original: