SG Fairy

Brought my mum to see 881 today… I had gone to watch it some days earlier with Nis and totally loved it. I was determined to drag my mum down for it… Hokkien blood runs through her veins, and her family background’s such that she would be familiar with all the getai etc…. how can resist a Hokkien musical dramady?

Where to start… to explain why 881 is going to be the new addition of my ‘Favourite Movies’ list in Friendster…

As a story, it’s entertaining… on one hand it’s very funny, and it has its extremely corny moments (begging the Getai Goddess for super singing powers… and who can forget the laser-shooting durian bras). On the other hand, it’s very moving… crying-buckets-of-tears sort of touching.

Also, I’m a sucker for dialect movies, especially if the subtitles are very accurate. I mean, hey, I’m losing touch with my ethnic roots here in SG – I blame the ‘speak mandarin’ campaign. Plus, the conversations are very real, very ‘daily-life’. And there wasn’t really any of the ‘it’s the gahmen lah!’ sort of speeches jack neo is well-known for. How many times can you take lamentations about the gahmen, I ask you?

Then there are the songs. Lovely lovely pieces… of course Hokkien songs are generally very depressing – it’s either about the lack of money, parents ill-treating the kid, a woman struggling to survive in the prositution line, or health problems. But still, in this day and age where songs generally do lack depth and are soooo boring, it was refreshing.

The costumes were breath-taking. I’ve always secretly dreamt about wearing clothes full of sequims, with feathers in my hair… that sort of drag-queen look. And the main leads looked very nice indeed, though I must say I thought one of their outfits (the kindergarten flower petal band around the face) was a little gross, lol. I can’t name a favourite costume, but I did particularly like the Egyptian outfit and the finale white piece.

Cinematography. I’m no expert in that field, but I think Roystan Tan did very well in using the right camera angles etc to really bring out the essence of the story. And oh man, especially the last part in the hospital where one of the girls was dying… sob sob… so powerful. What made it even more touching was the sort of scenes which took place prior to the death scene… seemingly normal conversations, nothing like the loud wailing Taiwanese mourning type… it made everything feel somewhat more real.

So yes, 881 did leave a really deep impression on me. And after the movie, my mum was like, “why you.. sob sob.. bring me to watch… sob sob… this kind of movie? I thot it’s a fun thing! But… sob sob.. see lah! Now I cannot lift my face.. sob sob.. to walk ard in public, wait… sob sob… ppl see my red nose!”

Anyway... here's my favourite song from the movie... i'm so going to memorise it. Me, memorise a Chinese-Hokkien song?!?! ya, that's how much i like it. and i'm going to get the movie song cd too!