There are possibly 3 things that can traumatize and scare the wits out of a seemingly nonchalant girl like me.
1) No prizes for guessing this one. A galore of food items containing a trace of beef, butter, cream, mutton, lamb, cheese placed within proximity of a nose whiff from me is sufficient to induce waves of nausea and automatically trigger a spasmodic urge to............PUKE.
2) When a male friend/buddy suddenly declares an abrupt and unreciprocated feeling of affection for me, I give them the boot and run like the wind, keeping a considerably far distance away from these unsuspecting lads.......
3)When I watch a Getai musical movie filled with an overly extravagant explosion of electrifying neon-coloured sequined costumes, featuring beady eyed singers with oil slicked hair blaring away headache-inducing garish tunes laced with cheesy lyrics while shuffling their feet to some really tacky dance moves.
I may have sounded overly critical there. So you may have guessed.
I just watched Royston Tan's much talked about musical melodrama 12 Lotus, for no other good reason than to fulfil a granddaughter's obligation to accompany her bored and lonely grandmother to the theatre. 121 minutes of my life trudged by, all that was left was a mind numbed from an overdose of showbiz razzle dazzle glitter fest. Like a child who ate too much candy. Yes, that was how I felt after watching this locally produced flick.
The only possibly redeeming thing about 12 Lotus was its storyline. In the film, movie-watchers are brought through 12 chapters of a getai singer's life-journey. The female protagonist of the movie features Lian Hua (which literally translates as Lotus), an unlucky girl who suffers one misfortune after another. Firstly she grows up in a kampong slum without a mother, getting whipped occassionally by her abusive money-gambling father. Secondly, she meets the love of her life, another getai performer, who turns out to be smooth-talking jerk in disguise. And then, she gets really fat, from stuffing too many Jacob's cream crackers down her throat whenever she suffers a panic-attack and hallucination from her haunting past. I won't spoil the ending, but the 12 chronicles eventually come to a full circle, and our poor tortured heroine never really gets her happy ending.
I've grown to appreciate what the older generation of singaporean Aunties and Uncles grew up with. Loud hokkein songs sung on an outdoor stage, against a backdrop of revolving disco lights. Underaged dancers flitting about in skimpy apparrel, dancing retro ago-go style as Uncles would oogle while sitting on plastic chairs, sipping away their tiger beers till the wee hours of the morning. Entertainment was easily accessible as a walk from the neighbouring HDB flats across a grassfield. It had to be fuss-free, since most of them struggled against the odds back then, juggling mutliple odd jobs during the poverty-stricken war period. Getai was their MTV.
1) No prizes for guessing this one. A galore of food items containing a trace of beef, butter, cream, mutton, lamb, cheese placed within proximity of a nose whiff from me is sufficient to induce waves of nausea and automatically trigger a spasmodic urge to............PUKE.
2) When a male friend/buddy suddenly declares an abrupt and unreciprocated feeling of affection for me, I give them the boot and run like the wind, keeping a considerably far distance away from these unsuspecting lads.......
3)When I watch a Getai musical movie filled with an overly extravagant explosion of electrifying neon-coloured sequined costumes, featuring beady eyed singers with oil slicked hair blaring away headache-inducing garish tunes laced with cheesy lyrics while shuffling their feet to some really tacky dance moves.
I may have sounded overly critical there. So you may have guessed.
I just watched Royston Tan's much talked about musical melodrama 12 Lotus, for no other good reason than to fulfil a granddaughter's obligation to accompany her bored and lonely grandmother to the theatre. 121 minutes of my life trudged by, all that was left was a mind numbed from an overdose of showbiz razzle dazzle glitter fest. Like a child who ate too much candy. Yes, that was how I felt after watching this locally produced flick.
The only possibly redeeming thing about 12 Lotus was its storyline. In the film, movie-watchers are brought through 12 chapters of a getai singer's life-journey. The female protagonist of the movie features Lian Hua (which literally translates as Lotus), an unlucky girl who suffers one misfortune after another. Firstly she grows up in a kampong slum without a mother, getting whipped occassionally by her abusive money-gambling father. Secondly, she meets the love of her life, another getai performer, who turns out to be smooth-talking jerk in disguise. And then, she gets really fat, from stuffing too many Jacob's cream crackers down her throat whenever she suffers a panic-attack and hallucination from her haunting past. I won't spoil the ending, but the 12 chronicles eventually come to a full circle, and our poor tortured heroine never really gets her happy ending.
I've grown to appreciate what the older generation of singaporean Aunties and Uncles grew up with. Loud hokkein songs sung on an outdoor stage, against a backdrop of revolving disco lights. Underaged dancers flitting about in skimpy apparrel, dancing retro ago-go style as Uncles would oogle while sitting on plastic chairs, sipping away their tiger beers till the wee hours of the morning. Entertainment was easily accessible as a walk from the neighbouring HDB flats across a grassfield. It had to be fuss-free, since most of them struggled against the odds back then, juggling mutliple odd jobs during the poverty-stricken war period. Getai was their MTV.
Getai, definetely not my cup of tea and often mistaken for Chinese dance
So basically, a 12 Lotus illustrates an unexperienced reality that resides in the heartlands. Something perhaps a sheltered Bukit-timah based girl would never comprehend.
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