In Continuum.

Legend Of The Dead Sea

When somebody comes into the room with a giant plate of lemon pie, everybody wants a slice of it. Let's admit it, when it comes to lemon pies, nobody can resist the temptation of grabbing a slice of it and then stuffing it into your mouth. The aroma itself is enough to send your stomach into continuous somersaults a million times. The truth is, as long as it is a good pie, everybody wants one.

The movie industry has been around since the late 1800s. It started off in the America, slowly spreading its influence across the Atlantic, and finally to the Asian Market. The Asian movie industry isn't nearly as developed as its Western counterpart. It doesn't if you are talking about the budget, the market or the special effects involved. The Asian movie industry has been plagued with the problem of being overshadowed by the West. Though once in a while, you find gems here and there that shines at film festivals, but the West still takes the cake when it comes to the success as a whole. You may be a favorite amongst the art house critics, but it all comes down to money in the end, and the Asian market cannot hold a candle against the onslaught of the West.

The movie industry has long been seen as a giant pie, and everybody wants a taste of it. People say that America's only rival is probably the European Market, constantly sweeping the trophies at award shows from either side of the Atlantic. However, when it comes to sheer volume, Hollywood cannot even hold a candle against Bollywood's force. After all, this is the country with the second biggest population in the world, the market there is humongous. Therefore, when it comes to showing off, India is probably the pride and joy of the Asian market when it comes to movies. So seeing how Bollywood struck it off rich in the same market, other countries are following in their footsteps and doing the same as well.

In the last decade or so, the Asian market has been growing rapidly in terms of their quantity of movies and quality especially. Movies are being made all the time in countries like China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. In fact, their quality has risen so much that Hollywood are remaking the films originally produced here in our backyard.

So, with this kind of pie just waiting for us to slice, why not dig in as well? At least that must be what the film makers of the very first Singaporean movie thought of when they decided to film a movie and label it "Our very own". If I am not wrong, the first film made by a Singaporean that made it to the theaters was Army Daze, a story about a bunch of strange characters and their lives in the army. It was a very typical kind of story line with not much substance to speak of. However, it did have its moments, and it related to the local audience - especially to army boys like myself. Anyway, so that was the very first attempt at the movie industry, a decent first attempt which was never meant to make it anywhere further than our neighbor - Malaysia. However, there are times when one's dreams grow too fast and their egos grow too huge. Singapore is now intending on further projects, and moving so fast that they are falling flat on their faces.

It all started when Royston Tan's film 15 received critical acclaim all the way from the various film festivals all around the world. Due to his success and fame, everybody thought that "Hey, if he can do it, we can do it too!" So from then on, everybody started trying to make films meant for not only the local audiences, but for the world's audience as well. Initially, the movie industry locally was dominated by a single name: Jack Neo. I've never liked this man, and found his humor to be average or even cheap. He started off as a television host, teaming up with his so-called J-Team on variety shows not even half as good as the source of their inspirations: Taiwan. I find his type of humor to be an insult to the viewers in Singapore, and there is a certain irony in how the general population accepts his type of slapstick/bathroom jokes. After all, cross-dressing really isn't funny at all.

His so-called masterpieces like I Not Stupid and Home Run - while successful at the local box office - were mediocre efforts in my opinion. They all follow a standard storytelling template: An Introduction, A Build Up and a Climax. Every line can be predicted, and you won't need spoilers to know how things will turn out at the very end of the movie. Which is also why it confuses me why this man receives so much acclaim locally, when his films are being universally panned overseas. But of course, if you are an average Singaporean reading this, you are probably not going to know about such things. After all, they only show people with happy faces on headlines in newspaper and news, and never anything negative about the country.

Then comes the new low in the country's movie industry, when they attempted to ride the wave of computer animated films like Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, by coming up with their own brand of movies meant for children. It happened last year when they came out with the movie about Chinese Zodiacs, filled with a story we have a heard a million times in Primary Schools and bad animation. Less than a year later today, we have the movie called Legend of the Sea, universally panned by the LOCAL critics, which are usually the lenient ones when it comes to criticizing local films. After all, they always have a lowered standard when it comes to those, saying that the local movie industry has to be supported because of how new we are.

However, I do not see it as an excuse to make bad movies at all. Let's face it, movies like Shrek or Finding Nemo takes years to make at any one time. It takes hundreds of hours just to produce a single film, and they never allowed any sub-standard material to make it onto the reel - at least not bad enough for the audience to squirm. The thing about animated movies these days is the fact that you can never find an animated film that is utterly repulsive. They are either GREAT - like Shrek or Finding Nemo - or just OK - like Madagascar. My point is, that it can never be too bad for your children to watch comfortably in the cinemas.

That is not the case in Singapore, and they are being overly ambitious even after the bad reviews the last animated movie received. Less than a year after its release, they came up with the brilliant movie called Legends of the Sea, a total rip off of Finding Nemo, adding stories from Chinese folklore into the plot. Now, you might think that this might make a good formula for a movie, but that is not the case at all. The critics here are slamming the movie, giving it a mere one star out of four for the plain effort, and nothing else in the movie is worth boasting about at all. It's true that nobody cares if a singer is voicing the main protagonist, or if the girl voicing the sea urchin thing is utterly cute. Consumers these days are smart, and we do have the right to have something remotely enjoyable at the theaters, locally produced or not. We are not going to pay good money for a film just because it is made locally, even if it has zero quality to it whatsoever.

So it comes down to a dilemma as to whether or not we should pay money for such a cheap piece of film. On one hand, we should support local productions because...well, they are local. On the other, we have our rights as consumers to be satisfied. And if we are going to go into a movie with bad effects all around, bad dubbing efforts, a below average movie, then what is the point? Wouldn't it be better if we just donated our money to the directors and be rid of the torture? Hell, you can even save two hours of your time and devoting it to other movies like Ocean's Thirteen at the very same price. So why not?

Seriously, being new at the industry is really not the excuse to SUCK. Think of yourself as a singer who just stepped into the music industry. You are not going to explain to the public that you are new to the whole shebang, and therefore it is OK that your voice sounds worse than an average fifty year old man farting in bed. Or picture yourself as a published author with twenty eight grammatical mistakes in the first page of your novel. You are not going to apologize to the public saying "I'm sorry, I'm new at this. Can you guys excuse me for being such a lousy writer?" It simply doesn't work that way at all, it's not an excuse to be dishing out films with low quality - if it has a quality to speak of at all.

The truth is, it is not that hard to produce a film that is both good and cheap - if you are going to use 'budget' as an excuse for the poor movies. I say move away from animation, because you are never going to be as good as the Americans anytime soon, and you are only going to embarrass yourself even more if you continue with this blind ambition. Invest time on your script, put money in developing writers to produce screenplays that are plot driven instead of it being full of cliche material. Movies like Memento, Before Sunrise, or About Schmidt, never relied on elaborate set pieces, special effects or anything of that sort to be good. They mere had a good story to tell, and having a talent at good storytelling is not something that is exclusive to the Americans alone. I believe that Singaporeans can be creative and be adventurous as well, it's just that the people here are not prepared to make risks, to be daring just yet.

So give Legend of the Sea a pass, and move on to something more worth your money this summer. Wait out for Fantastic 4 next week, or Transformers that is coming up soon after. If you really want to support local productions, trust Royston Tan to make decent films. Because really, paying tickets to watch Legend of the Sea is as good as paying money for a concert of a dozen three year olds crying out loud. It is not going to be worth your money.