15: The Movie (2003)

Absolutely brilliant

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

15 follows several 15 year-olds in suburban Singapore. They display their angst by acting like typical teenagers: talk sex, do drugs, and act obnoxious.Their innocence is slowly lost as they begin to dwell on gang life and suicide.Overall, it's very stylish, using different color filters and flashy effects. It transitions between chapters with titles that give off a feeling of angsty teenage philosophy and tells of their struggles. This develops a lot of potential to be like other great films with similar subjects, like Donnie Darko. Some of the themes of suicide bring up the great films of Sion Sono, such as Suicide Club and Noriko's Dinner Table.This film does not live up to those titles. The style is great at first, especially in the character's "music videos", but eventually gets repetitive.There isn't that much of a plot. You just kinda follow the characters around, there isn't a real conflict or goal. Then again, it doesn't really follow the traditional three-act format. It jumps around from different groups of characters. You don't spend that much time with some so it's hard to connect with them. This is my main complaint.Some of the emotional scenes seem a bit forced. There are a couple scenes that go on for a long time with one shot, and try to be kinda artsy and emotional but just don't work.The film does have a few instances of dark comedy, which is one of the best points. There isn't much though.If the film had more story and balance, it would be much better.

This is a show about the lives of Singaporean boys, mostly from broken families and how they go astray. They end up in gangs, forming some sort of "brotherhood". It's fantastic how well they managed to portray a typical day of a Singaporean gangster, their mischief and their "violent tendencies". It may seem like fiction but I do know of incidents such as these that actually go on in Singapore that most people do not see. Matter of fact, I do know some people who are exactly like the characters you will be seeing in the show. Show starts off with Vynn and Melvin, 2 good friends who had just fallen out with Shaun, who had gone on to join another gang. Show moves on to the life of Shaun and his posse, getting into gang fights, drinking, clubbing, smoking and taking drugs. Shaun and his new friend Erick are pretty much inseparable, but shows no sign of homosexual tendencies. I can account for this from the things they mentioned throughout the show, always speaking about brotherhood and loyalty. They are extremely good and close friends, but are not emotionally involved in a homosexual manner. The show has occasional graphic scenes, like the piercings, and the drug smuggling. Viewers be warned.

The last time a local film actually garnered critical acclaim, Cleopatra Wong was still karate chopping up policemen in shorts. Hailing from 21th century Singapore, I was all eager to watch 15. Too eager, on hindsight, as I passed up Broken Flowers and Julie Delpy for it.Opening sequence with 3 leads playing bow-and arrows in a metaphorical wasteland (Nope! There's no desert in monsoon-ravaged Singapore), a sense of foreboding crept up inside me. A film which purports to capture street life grittiness but opens with some high arty farty concept, is suffering from a clash of ideologies, something akin to getting Jesus and God of Mercy tattooed on your back.So the movie meanders down this slippery path of pseudo high concept art. We find Ah-bengs, or 'street thugs' in colloquial Hokkien, not in the streets spilling blood, but hanging around in their not-so-spartan HDB flats musing about the vagaries of life and occasionally breaking into colourful song-and-dance. Sounds a lot like my life, thank you.Granted, there were a few great takes of self-mutilation and drug-smuggling, which was stomach churning even to the hardboiled. But the terrible pacing blunted the scenes and ruined the senses. It was with much gratitude that I survived the extreme tedium, thanks to my fingers on the FAST FORWARD button. Mind you, it was not just a casual fast forward, but a SUPER TURBO FAST FORWARD of 8x.15 would indeed be a smashing hit as a 15 min long feature. Royston Tan shouldn't have dragged 15 out from the relative comforts of short films to the hazards of full-lengths. A full-length film needs to be sustained by a story, a heartbeat. Witness how blood courses through the veins of Amores Perros, or Cidade de Deus. A concept alone, even if wrapped up in garish lighting and high contrast colours, is simply not enough.IMDb Rating: 4.7 (-1 for lack of Ah Lians in a movie about Ah Bengs. Oh! Ludicrious!)

For the uninitiated, 15 tells the story of Singapore's lost youth. The original short film (at a duration of approximately 20 minutes) was excellent and mind blowing. A treat for all the senses. I don't think there was a single person who left the film festival screening unmoved.The feature length version basically continues where the short left off. And what a great feature it would've been had there been an actual story! The movie was wandering and meandering, meaningless at some points, and just plain boring at others. I shall always treasure the short film experience, and have already forgotten the feature length abomination.