Gone Shopping
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“Walking through the heart of Singapore, is like walking through a series of large shopping centers”
-- UK Sociologist Mike Featherstone in his book “Lifestyles and Consumer Culture”
“GONE SHOPPING” is a darkly comical character study of three individuals who escape to various shopping centers in search of a better life.
Leading the repertoire is Clara, a tragically romantic 40-year-old ‘tai tai' (wealthy lady of leisure) who goes to the shopping center in search of affection, followed by Renu, a feisty 8-year-old girl who goes to the shopping center in search of independence and finally Aaron, an angst ridden 23-year-old 'Gen-Y' boy who goes to the shopping center in search of his manhood.
Unfolding over three days, this motley crew will lead audiences through a journey of love, loss and lunacy in the heart of Singapore where they find that their dreams can be bought and broken.
In the midst of it all, they will also cross paths with other ‘creatures' of the shopping centers, each of them with their own strange retail tales.
Official Website
Release Date: 26th July 2007
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Shopping and kissing
By Mayo Martin, TODAY | Posted: 29 June 2007 1058 hrs
SINGAPORE : Kym Ng gets her first feature film — and her first kiss. On screen, that is.
At Thursday afternoon's press conference for the new movie Gone Shopping, she was asked to describe co-star Adrian Pang's kissing prowess.
"He has got a very thick and long tongue," the 30-something actress said in jest. To which Pang hastily clarified: "It was very sanitised."
Ng shares her first onscreen kissing scene — done in three takes — with her fellow MediaCorp artiste in the debut feature film by award-winning short film director Wee Li Lin, 34, which hits local cinemas on July 26.
Gone Shopping, which Wee describes as a "satirical drama", centres on three disenfranchised characters who look for comfort in malls. Ng plays Clara, a 40-year-old tai-tai who rekindles a romance with Valentine, Pang's character who works at Tang's.
Newbie actor Aaron Kao, a La Salle-SIA graduate and former student of Wee, plays his namesake reluctant to join the workforce, while seven-year-old Sonya Nair bested 70 others to debut as Renu, a latchkey kid. The cast also includes, among others, Chen Shu Cheng, Magdelene Tan, Selena Tan, Brandon Lee, Chermaine Ang and Cheryl Miles.
The movie, produced by Kismet Films and distributed by Golden Village Pictures, is the first full-length feature film for Ng, who said she does not have the makings of a tai-tai. "The spirit is there Â… but not the money," she said.
Pang, 41, described his character as "a jaded loner." He appears in five scenes, and wears a moustache.
"It's a blink-and-miss performance. My moustache does all the performing. And my lines are in Chinese, some more," he joked.
The movie is trilingual, with scenes in English, Mandarin and Tamil.
Wee, who won a best director award at the 1997 Singapore International Film Festival for her short Norman On The Air, completed Gone Shopping in 31 days over a couple of years. It was shot at Tang's, Marina Square and Mustafa Centre. Certain scenes were also shot at Far East Plaza, Paragon and Suntec City.
Thursday, Golden Village Pictures managing director Kenneth Tan announced that the company will be signing up for the movie's sequels. "How can anyone say no to a movie about Singapore's national obsession?" he said.
Several props and wardrobe used in the movie, including three dresses Ng wore, will be auctioned online on eBay. Proceeds will go to The Substation, where Wee has screened most of her short films.
A trailer of the movie can be seen on www.goneshoppingthemovie.com.
- TODAY/rose -
showing this coming week!
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Singaporeans are known for our passion for food, be it either great tasting humble hawker fare, or exquisite fine dining at various swanky restaurants. Food has been featured in a number of our local movies, with yellow flat noodles being the Mee Pok in Mee Pok Man, Chicken Rice in Chicken Rice War, and the ubiquitous coffeeshop locales in almost all of director Jack Neo's movies. The other passion we have is for shopping, no doubt with our most famous road being Orchard Road, for its malls and food of course, and the various generic shopping malls (with almost the same shops, that each mall seemed xeroxed from the preceding success story) that have sprung up in various neighbourhood heartland town centers all over the island.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/07/gone-shopping.html -
magdalene tan.
