来，去Jiak Hong

Eating Air by Kelvin Tong (1999) is a heavily Singaporean flavoured film, about an Ah Beng who falls in love with an unassuming girl, yet ended up losing his life to honour his friendship with a fellow street hooligan.


For me, it is actually quite hard to pin-point exactly which genre the movie falls into, it’s a comedy but the twist in the ending and the loyalty of friendships rendered it the melodrama touch; the kungfu elements are there but they are not strong enough to give the stylistic punch for the film; Ah Beng and Girl’s love story has the youthful puppy-love elements but their story is not substantial enough for it to be a tale of romance.

Despite its hybridity, I actually kind of enjoyed the movie as it provided me with quite a good laugh! Although the story focus is on Ah Beng and Ah Girl, I had my moments of laughter the most when the supporting actors appeared.

In this entry, I shall write about them:

1. Mark Lee – Mark Lee plays a braggart yet timid “hooligan”, Lao Beng, who brags about his adventures yet he has zilch guts - there is only one thing for sure, he is always the first to escape in face of any danger or street fights.

2. Kit Chan – Kit Chan’s few appearances in the movie only left me with a trail of questions, I wondered who is she exactly? The movie did not provide a clear answer for that, yet her cameos had this subtle humour in them, especially the one of her with a look of innocence in school uniform (as seen in the screenshot above).

3. Michelle Chong – Oh, her Malaysian accent is really hilarious. I love watching Channel 5’s The Noose (a satire entertainment programme with only a handful of talents imitating everyone and anyone) and her performance in the show was fabulous, she could take on roles of genre, be it the stereotypical Ang-Moh-loving-materialistic-girl, the pokerfaced spokeswoman, or the China lady who’s earning her keep by singing in the sleazy Karaoke outlets in Singapore. Little did I know Michelle could already do a great job in imitating accents way back since this movie!

There is this motif in the movie which I found it to be interesting, yet I couldn’t really figure out the reason behind it – the purple stain that appears on Girl’s shirt on two occasions! One being the first meeting she had with Ah Beng, the other being when she walked away in despair when Ah Beng died. Why were her matters of heart depicted along with splashed purple ink? Hmmm.


References:
Eating Air (1999) - IMBD
Eating Air (1999) – Movie Exclusive