Update (April 15, 11.55pm): Read Michael Chua's original unedited letter vs his edited letter published in ST Life! here.

By now, you'd most probably have seen Gift, a Singaporean seven-minute Daniel Yam short film produced for the Singapore Community Chest starring Michael Chua that was trending on social media last month.

Chua, the actor who portrayed the father, has joined the fray and written to The Straits Times Life! to advocate the use of standard English in locally-made films.

He was writing in support of another letter, "Use Standard English In Films" by Yeoh Teng Kwong that advocates the use of English in Singaporean works to reach wider audiences.

Although it might sound controversial to push for English to be used in Singapore films, we can trust Chua as an authority when he says using standard English in films makes more commercial sense, especially if Singapore wants to break into the international market.

Chua is, after all, a thespian with a proven track record of scoring hits with his presence in short films and he has to work languages to engage with the audience.

Gift had even made it onto Huffington Post.

He is perhaps Standard English's best advocate. For now.

This is Chua's letter in full, published in ST Life! on April 12, 2014:

I agree with Mr Yeoh about producing art with universal appeal and standard English to reach a wider audience.

I have acted in the lead role of two short films that have been put online.

The first one, Hentak Kaki, about an army warrant officer hitting the career glass ceiling due to a knee injury, was scripted in typical army lingo. It has an online hit rate of about 200,000.

However, I suspect that because of the localised lingo, the film did not travel much beyond Malaysia and Singapore.

The other short film is Gift, which is about a misunderstood father and his disgruntled son. This film has a combined online hit rate of about five million. The film uses standard English.

Another short film worth studying is Detour, which I acted in. It won awards in four categories at the 5th Singapore Short Film Awards 2014. The film uses Hokkien, with one or two English words.

I think films with universal values travel, but films with mainstream languages travel further.

Michael Chua

Watch Hentak Kaki here:

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Watch Gift here:

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Related article:

Actor in viral Hentak Kaki S’porean short film, starring in yet another viral short film

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