City Sharks

Lacks punch.Could have been better if the cast and all their chemistries are exploited to the max.Like most Singaporean made movies, City Sharks could not keep up with the momentum as the movie goes by.They got the brilliant casts, cool soundtracks and all but they suffer from a syndrome whereby after an excellent first 5-10 minutes shots of the film,everything just turns cliche,corny and crappy even.

Like many others, I keep away from local films like the plague. Movies like One Leg Kicking, Sharp Pencil, Chicken Rice War and Liang Po Po have left me with a bad taste in my mouth. But alas, along came City Sharks, a movie starring the very surprising (in a good way) Nicholas Lee. Ok, I admit I didn't catch the movie when it played in the cinemas. But I was fortunate enough to catch it some weeks back at Fort Canning where it played to a few thousand people in the park. I heard some grumble 'why are they showing a local film?'. 'Why don't they show Daredevil?' etc. etc. But these were the same people who were, half an hour later, laughing hysterically at the antics on screen. It was funny, didn't try to be arty, and was just 90 minutes of fun, fun, fun! I loved the fact that something new happened every ten minutes in the film. And thanks to Sharks, I have since borrowed more local films on video. Mostly crap, as expected, but a few great ones like 'Eating Air'. Is it a coincidence that 'Air' like 'Sharks' is a road-ie movie? Perhaps more Singaporean filmmakers should make road movies instead of poorly made movies about football, chicken rice, trees, jane's and sam's! Good work to the Singaporean (or was it Malaysian) team for an extremely entertaining movie. And thanks too for restoring my faith in local movies.

I don't think this movie has made it beyond Asian shores, but I was recently in Singapore and watched a host of their local fare. One such film, and in my mind, the most memorable, was City Sharks. The movie starts quickly, picks up the pace with a very funny and very unexpected twist, then kicks off on an off-beat road trip into the neighboring country. It is an excellent story that moves as quickly as the guys speeding down the country roads. Even though the cinematography was sometimes inconsistent - some scenes were just brilliant, some were poor - the overall story had me hooked. There are tons of hilarious moments especially when the three guys start working together, and the conversation was witty and even ridiculously funny. Their need to belong, coupled with their incompetence, was charming and I just loved the three boys!!! And the dramatic scenes (three come to mind) were brilliantly underplayed and truly tugged at the heart strings. The blond Indian character was the least memorable of the trio, but when covered by his other two orphanage pals, wasn't as grating. The female lead (if there was one) wasn't very good, but thankfully there was very little of her. The orphanage parents were great and I loved the fact that they behaved like a real, married couple. I did wish that the kung fu scene was a little longer, but overall, I'd have to say that this was the best, non-pretentious film I watched during my tenure in Asia.

Bad acting. That was the first thing that i noticed. Even Nicholas Lee looks very amateur in this movie. Maybe it was because the language. Many of the singapore actors/actresses has some problems acting with english. They more comfortable to speak chinese or 'singlish', because I see they acted better in those languages. The story was interesting enough but it was ruined by poor acting. Some of the jokes are very lame and looks really stupid. Overall I was very, very disappointed. 5/10 If you want to see a better film from s'pore, watch "15" instead.