PHUA CHU KANG THE MOVIE - 'NO MORE SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH'
by Gabriel Chong | 10 August 2010

It’s no secret that Phua Chu Kang, Singapore’s most famous (and some say, infamous) contractor, was made to improve his English, and by extension tone down his Singlish, after he was singled out by the then-Prime Minister in 2000. Well, it seems PCK will have the last laugh after all- he will not only be reverting to his Singlish ways in his first big-screen outing, he’ll also be speaking in dialect, all the things you can’t do as a half-hour primetime sitcom on national television.

That’s one reason PCK (or Gurmit Singh) says fans should come and see his long-awaited Phua Chu Kang: The Movie, which comes after eight seasons of the series in Singapore and another one in Malaysia. “One word- shiok,” said Rosie (Irene Ang) when asked to describe how she felt about the copious use of Singlish and dialect in the film. “Cos it’s very real. We talk like that…but cos of the TV censorship, we pretend that we really speak English so we find that this movie was very liberating for us.”

And that was plenty of their trademark humour (read: in Singlish and dialect) on display when PCK, Rosie and the rest of the PCK family- Ah Ma and Frankie Foo- met members of the press in character to promote the movie. Indeed, the unusually lively conference was a testament to the chemistry between the cast of one of the longest-running and arguably most successful local TV series.

Why So Long To Make Movie?

Yet PCK has taken more than a decade to make the leap to the big screen. “We’ve been talking about making this movie for a long long time, since maybe about season five,” said Gurmit. “But the biggest problem was that the story needed to be compelling enough to be different from what you see on television, something that you cannot tell in half an hour that will also make you pay that money to come to the cinema to watch.”

Irene added that talk of the movie had been swirling around for such a long time but it was only last year that she and Gurmit got wind that production of the movie would finally get underway- complete with a script by S M Ong, who was part of the PCK crew as early as season two and wrote one of the highest-rated episodes of the sitcom.

Director Boris Boo compares PCK in layman terms to “mixed rice” in the coffeeshop that was assessible to anyone and everyone. Because the cast were already so familiar with their characters and had such great chemistry with one another, Boris said that they were practically on “autopilot” when shooting the movie. Instead, his challenge in making the movie was to keep the original flavour that made the sitcom such a success, but somewhat different so it would feel like a movie.

One addition to the movie is Henry Thia’s character, a smarmy CEO by the name of Lim Lau Pek (yes, an obvious riff to a certain Hokkien phrase) of the old folks’ home where Chu Kang’s mother (Ah Ma) is found after disappearing mysteriously. Boo said that he chose Henry Thia to help the movie reach out to a wider audience.

“PCK is a sitcom from Channel 5 whereas Henry is from Channel 8 so he commands a certain group of the Chinese-speaking audience,” said Boris. “We were thinking that if we bring in Henry, we may actually attract the Chinese-speaking crowd who may not be loyal fans of the sitcom but are still interested to watch it.”

Why Change Location?

Contrary to expectations, PCK The Movie isn’t set in the sunny island of Singapore where PCK first originated. Instead, to keep it consistent with the series, PCK The Movie is in fact set and shot in Malaysia. You see, PCK and his family had already migrated to Malaysia in the spinoff and the producers decided to keep him in Kuala Lumpur for this movie.

When asked if the change of location meant any change to the style of comedy in the spinoff and also the movie, Gurmit said: “It was more of a different take because a lot of times we were doing jokes about the issues that were hot in Singapore. So when we made PCK Sdn Bhd, we talked about the issues that were hot in Malaysia, or the lifestyle and the way of work.”

But Gurmit reassures us that the shooting location is really irrelevant to the story itself. “It doesn’t really matter where you shoot the film… A lot of American films are shot in Prague.” Another reason for the change was the fanbase that PCK had accumulated in Malaysia over the seasons. “Malaysians welcomed us with open arms so it was only natural that we talked about stuff in Malaysia so they feel that little connection to the story.”

Why So Popular?

Gurmit is aware that PCK has taken a life of its own, so much so that he has found it difficult to hang up his boots after what was announced then as the eighth and last season of the sitcom. He said that he still dons his yellow boots for appearances every now and then, both here and across the Causeway.

He attributes the popularity of PCK to the nature of his character and his family, which he describes as “comical, irreverent, weird, low-class, crass even but non-threatening”. “Each of the audience is able to find a part of you in it- there’s a little Lian in you, a little Beng in you, a little kiasu-ness in you, a little father in you, a little hen-pecked husband in you- so I think everybody found a little bit of something in our show so that’s why I think we became so massively acceptable.”

And indeed, the cast have no reservations about coming back for sequels of PCK The Movie. Neo Swee Lin said that it feels great to be back to something which helped propel her career for a while so that she wasn’t as typecast as an actress “playing someone’s mother”. Her real-life husband Lim Kay Siu was even prouder for that fact. “I’ve always knew how great an actress Swee Lin is, so this allowed people to see a wider range of her talent.”

“It’s all up to the fans,” said Gurmit. “I mean if the fans want it then why not?” And fans can start registering their support for PCK when the movie opens nationwide August 12. After all, PCK The Movie has the dubious honour of being the first local TV series to ever make the leap to the big screen- that definitely must speak for something.

Phua Chu Kang The Movie opens in theatres 12 August 2010