IN THE ROOM (无限春光27) (2016)

Genre: Erotic Drama
Director: Eric Khoo
Cast: Josie Ho, Choi Woo Shik, Lawrence Wong, George Young, Koh Boon Pin, Daniel Jenkins, Ian Tan, Nadia Ar, Netnaphad Pulsated, Wasurat Unaprom, Show Nishino, Kkobbi Kim
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Rating: R21 (Sexual Scenes)
Released By: Encore Films and Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 25 February 2016

Synopsis:  IN THE ROOM deals with love, life and lust. Eric Khoo’s latest film is a tapestry of six stories, all of which unfold in a hotel room over several decades. The common thread is sex. That hotel room is Room 27 at the Singapura Hotel, which started out as a ritzy establishment in the 1940s but has, over the decades, lost its sheen of respectability. In that time, Room 27 has felt and experienced – through the individuals who have passed through its doors and made love on its bed - all facets of the human condition: joy, love, fear, compassion, cruelty, depravity and redemption. It has witnessed beginnings and endings, and everything in between. For some, Room 27 is a nameless numbered room, a place which provides a cloak of anonymity, where one could indulge in indiscretions and the forbidden, where their trespasses will be forgiven once they return the key and sign the bill.

Movie Review:

When we heard that Eric Khoo’s erotic drama would make its local premiere at last year’s Singapore International Film Festival, we were pretty psyched about it. After all, Khoo’s reputation as Singapore’s art house filmmaker has put us on the world map. This is the man who made feature films like Mee Pok Man (1995), 12 Storeys (1997), Be With Me (2005) and My Magic (2008). This doesn’t include his involvement as producer in other acclaimed local works like Royston Tan’s 15: The Movie (2003) and Boo Junfeng’s Sandcastle (2010). Khoo’s films has been screened at international film festivals such as Venice, Berlin, Rotterdamand the highly regarded Cannes.

And that is why we were looking forward to the 50 year old filmmaker’s latest feature film. No, really. We were not excited because it is marketed as an erotic drama stringing six stories set in Room 27 at the fictitious Singapura Hotel. Spanning several decades, the stories include characters from Singapore, Hong Kong, South Koreaand Thailand. No, we were not particularly eager to check out the sex scenes which were reportedly so, ahem, sensual, that the original version cannot be shown in mainstream cinemas.

Apparently, the Media Development Authority did not classify the original version for a commercial release (the film was passed with an R21 rating for its film festival screening in December last year). Then, business happened. Tweaks were made to the film so that its “International Version” could be released in Singaporefor those who did not have the chance to catch the original version. Some scenes which exceeded the film classification guidelines were reworked, but the movie runtime is retained (the powers of editing, indeed).

While most of us prudes would be concerned about what was edited, let’s just say it does not really matter. The marketing angle of how viewers will get to see some of the most erotic scenes ever filmed in a local film should be ashamed – this is Khoo’s “won little tribute to SG50” (as reported in a media interview). Hence, we should be focusing on the stories the film is trying to tell amidst the hot, steamy sex.

Unfortunately, we also feel this is Khoo’s weakest film yet. It is probably to the hype about the attention on the countless lusty sequences in the movie. While we get it that the film is trying to portray the urban loneliness that ironically strings most of us human beings together, the six stories feel somewhat uneven.

There is a British man who tries to persuade his married Chinese male lover to flee Singapore (Daniel Jenkins and Koh Boon Pin’s sequence is the most subdued), a mamasan who is trying to teach her disciples to embrace the power of their sexuality (Josie Ho’s segment is the most fun to watch), a young man who is trying to convince a married Japanese woman to have a future with him (Lawrence Wong and Show Nishino’s sex scenes are the ones you should be looking out for), a transgender Thai woman who is preparing for a sex reassignment surgery after her boyfriend performs a farewell fellatio, a sex crazed Korean girl who is traveling with her virgin school buddy, and the overarching story about a musician who dies of a heroin overdose and becomes a ghost which sticks around to witness the abovementioned tales, while having a bittersweet encounter with a young hotel maid. The last character is a dedication to the late horror writer and musician Damien Sin, who scripted Khoo’s debut feature film Mee Pok Man.

The concept does sound plausible on paper, but the execution fails to engage viewers throughout the film’s 104 minute runtime. Kudos to the production team for gradually turning the film’s look which indicates each segment’s era. There are also nice little touches which work as tributes to Khoo’s earlier films. However, when the film ends (with an out of this world conclusion, if we may add), we just couldn’t get the oomph which we were hoping to experience. 

Movie Rating:

(The hype about the steamy sex scenes sure got our attention – but alas, the uneven storytelling does not manage to, ahem, climax on a high)  

Review by John Li