Update May 18, 2015: Unlucky Plaza will be screened at The Projector starting May 21, 2015. Show Times: Mondays to Thursdays, 4.00pm, Fridays, 9.30pm, Saturdays, 5.00pm, Sundays, 2.30pm & 7.30pm.

Update May 13, 2015: Unlucky Plaza gets lucky as it has scored a two-day extension at Lido till this Friday (May 15). The cinema will consider screening the movie over the weekend. Fingers crossed.

Unlucky Plaza opened the 25th Singapore International Film Festival in December last year, with two sold out screenings. It opened in local cinemas in April this year, and is still showing.

In a country where even campaigns targeting crime are obliged to acknowledge the near-absence of it (‘low crime doesn’t mean no crime!’), film-maker Ken Kwek has crafted a Singaporean film unabashedly teeming with transgressions.

We’ll try and break Unlucky Plaza down: a desperate Filipino restaurant owner in dire financial straits is swindled by a woman in an extra-marital relationship with her church pastor, all while her unsuspecting husband is simultaneously hounded by a ruthless, gun-toting Chinese loanshark. Whew. The movie’s brazen tagline says it all, really: ‘Shi*t hits the fan in the world’s safest city’.

Mothership.sg took the opportunity to ask Director Ken Kwek a few questions about his latest film, Unlucky Plaza.

1. It's been quite a wait for the film's full domestic release since the film opened Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) late last year. Could you tell us a bit about Unlucky Plaza’s journey since SGIFF, and how it finally came to be released?

We inked a local distribution deal with Shaw soon after SGIFF. They looked at the schedule for 2015 and felt that mid-April was our best window in a year that's especially packed with both local and international film releases. That Unlucky Plaza opened a week after Fast & Furious 7 and a week before Avengers shows you how daunting our prospects looked from the outset.

2. For the most part, Unlucky Plaza was screened close to noon at Lido. It's obviously a tough slot to sell out on weekdays (although the film did manage it on a few occasions). Any thoughts on the timing assigned to the film?  One would (perhaps too idealistically...) have hoped that cinemas and distributors here might get behind a local movie a bit more, in terms of screening times or publicity. Has that happened in any sense? 

Yes, one would hope that distributors and cinema operators might get behind a local movie a bit more. But they don't, and that's the sad truth of it. It's not just the timing of the sessions, but also the number of sessions per day; the number of theatres the film opens in; the capacity and location of those theatres -- the commercial success of a film is dependent on a dozen factors. I don't think we ticked too many boxes in terms of being given optimum conditions. To begin with, we opened with 9 prints, a very modest number.

3. Is an extension/expansion of the film's run on the cards, in your opinion?   

I suppose if a film is making good money for the exhibitor, they'll extend the run for as long as it makes commercial sense for them. Local films tend to be booted off screens after the third week, so I'm quite pleased Unlucky Plaza has made it into its fourth week, if only in one small theatre.

4. The film builds towards a conclusion with dollops of commentary and sober observations on local issues, notably surrounding identity and immigration. Could you tell us a little bit about your intentions here, any messages, perhaps, that you were particularly keen to impart? How did you settle on the story you felt you'd like to tell?   

Well, I didn't approach Unlucky Plaza as a social commentary on local issues at all. I saw it as a human drama, a story about five fallible characters living in a rather hectic and unforgiving world. And I asked myself, if I were in the same situation as them, how would I react? If I were an émigré pushed to his limits, with nowhere and nobody to turn to for help, what would I do? Probably I'd act out, go a little crazy and maybe, just maybe, commit a crime out of sheer desperation.

5. Care to tell us what might be coming next? 

I have a few things knocking about in my head. But if I tell you, I'll have to kill you.

--

Mothership.sg's review of Unlucky Plaza

The film remains relentlessly self-aware of the Singaporean setting amid all the illicit activity going on. Unlucky Plaza’s best running gag centres around the Singaporean characters reacting in astonishment when a gun is brandished. The sight of a bewildered Adrian Pang, among others, babbling “A gun! A gun?! But but but this is Singapore why do you have a gun?!” is one of many amusing moments where the rollicking, crime-caper film manages to feel distinctly… here.

The performances are also consistently excellent. Epy Quizon, the aforementioned Filipino restaurant owner, anchors the film with his standout turn as Onassis Hernandez. Behind on his rent, struggling to turn his restaurant around, and finally cheated of his last dollar, watching his helplessness eventually crystalise into indignant fury is a captivating, believable experience.

Adrian Pang pops up in slick suit-and-porsche style as a financial guru who inspires cult-like devotion among his many followers; early scenes of him speaking to an adoring crowd, whipping them up into a frenzy, delightfully showcased all of the actor’s effortless charisma.

Finally, illicit couple Judee Tan and Shane Mardjuki struck a wonderful balance between the former’s impetuousness and the latter’s diffidence. Mardjuki’s passive pastor, stuttering and stammering his hesitant way through multiple sexual encounters, is a treat to watch, while Judee Tan’s role demanded more range and complexity, requirements she satisfies with aplomb.

Unlucky Plaza was by no means perfect, however; the light-hearted, lively pace of the first half felt slightly at odds with the weightier, more sluggish second. The latter allowed questions over immigration and xenophobia to surface more prominently, but one wondered if the jaunty caper was here finally being stretched beyond its means.

Lingering shots on a beleaguered Onassis perhaps dragged on a tad too long, too, threatening the buoyancy of the film. Thankfully, even amid the heavier portions Kwek retained his unique eye for entertainment, with some of the film’s funniest, and darkest, moments arriving in generous quantities to liven up the second half. A hostage situation drawing all the film’s thoroughly flawed, imperfect characters together brings laughs aplenty, and lead in well to an intriguing end, a lingering, open-ended thought about identity here, on this island, that many others would also like to call home.

Unlucky Plaza is currently scheduled to run till the Unlucky 13th of this month, Wednesday.

Top photo from here.

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