I am a dreamer.I free my imagination from the cage of conventions and let it escape.My imagination can only run wild in a make believe world of movies and to me reel life is richer than real life for it opens up our inner world to new possibilities.If Man had not dreamed to fly like birds or swim like fish,would the aeroplane and the submarine be even invented?
So let the world laugh at your crazy ideas,who knows one of them could become reality one day!
I viewed The movie The KIng Of Mask by Wu Tian Ming (thank you for your boldness as I was totally impressed by an underdog Xian film studio producing such brilliant directors compared to Beijing or Shanghai studios) ,it is the film nurturing talent of individuals by the studio that encourages art for art's sake not profit sake).Such a simple story focuses on the need to preserve traditional art forms like changing of the mask and challenging the conservative mindset that it could not be taught to outsiders.But with digital media being used to preserve the technique ,it could be studied one day and revived again.Then again a similar dilemma of preservation of traditional art form is seen in Bhutanese director Jamyang Kyentse Norbu's latest movie in which a troop of traditional masked dancers undergo transformation hidden by their masked selves.I've spent time viewing director's Jia Zhang Ke's movie making process and the creative process of Akira Kurosawa's scriptwriting to directing and I'm amazed by how they bring so many different disparate elements from writing to music to lighting ,from technology to age old acting skills to weave the tapestry into a 2 hour magic on screen.
I'm now incubating on a story that I hope to finish by 2017.It would mesh together the past and the present,use a range of techniques from real life actors merged with animation.It would use animation and be drawn in the style of a batik painting,incorporate wayang kulit but in the modern figures and use Teochew puppets and real life actors.It would show the process of how actors are trained and transformed through face painting into Chinese opera heroes and heroines. That would enable young audience to understand the difficulties of mastering the intricacies of traditional art form like opera.
I would use Chinese paper cutting of figurines to show the part of the Chinese operas,for the wayang kulit I would use traditional music of the dikir barat combined with Indian classical music on sitar.
Outline
Scene 1
This is a traditional story teller,the troop master of a Teochew puppet troop that is struggling to survive in Penang.Its only income is from performing at the Hungry ghost festival when stage performances of classical opera tales like Liao Zhai or the Journey to the West are performed for ghostly visitors .The stage on the other side has a big paper statue of the black faced God of Hell.
Times are bad and earnings are dwindling as the temple committee preferred to hire pole dancers and strip artistes to lure the younger crowd of ghosts and the salivating drooling old Ah Paks unwavering devotion to such titillaing performanes that will surely wake up the dead from their grave and make them hunger for something more than just the pink fatt go,the red ang koo kuih or the paper money. folded into ingots.
Ahh ,people have to keep up with the times.Even the traditional paper mansions and boy and girl paper figures or hell notes are so outdated.Now the in things to burn are smart phones,credit cards and i Pad.
So the Yuen Ching puppet troop is facing stiff competition.
Scene 2
Mr Koo the puppet owner is having problem paying the puppeeters their wages on time .The youngest 5 year old son of illiterate pupputeer Mrs Li secretly smuggles under the offering table and when it's 3 am ,he swipes the steamed pork buns,the ang koo kuih and gulps a few bottle of F and N orange before sneaking out and dumping them into the trash can far away.Let's see who is more hungry-the real person or the ghost?
Scene 3
Mr Koo's wife is a shy and hardworking person.She works as a babysitter to supplement the family's income.The eldest son Ah Chun hardly helps out at the theatre ,preferring to master the skill of auto repair.He spends his time doing drag racing on highways.The only other son An Fatt has a deformed leg .He was abandoned outside and found by the temple caretaker.Mrs Koo was the one who was paid by the caretaker to look after him and adopted him as one of her own.It was An Fatt who was a keen observer and learned the art of Teochew puppet shows. Ah Chun hated An Fatt as he was favoured by his father so he went out of his way to bully the "Lame leg boy"and make his life miserable.
Scene 4
In the temple of the Sleeping Buddha,they held the performance the whole night.Meanwhile the wayang kulit troop master has also lost his audience as no one is interested in Ramayna,Sita or Ravana.The young are glued to their satellite tv and chasing Pokemon Go.He has to resort making wayang kulit figures to sell to tourists as souvenirs.
Kassim his teenage 19 year old son organizes a group to hunt for rare sightings of Pokemon near the temple site .(the scene would be in animated form of wayang kulit as they climbed up coconut trees and dived into the padi fields to catch the Pokemon Go and parallel scenes of Wayang Kulit of Rama chasing to hunt and kill Ravana. controlled by the dalang his father.
Scene 5
The bad blood between the two brothers worsens when An Fatt begs Ah Chun to deliver some equipment to the Rasa temple.When he went back to his beloved car,Ah Chun got a shock.Vandals had removed all four spanking new high performance tyres and replaced them with four stacks of bricks.Macam macam pun boleh,May your whole family be killed ,a string of expletives fly out. From then on ,the rift between the brothers widened.
Scene 6
After their puppet show at 1 pm was the pole dancer's performance which saw a packed to full house
of old Ah Peks on an ogling.Wah that new dancer manyak shiok,you throw some ringgit notes at her er everything also you can see,they leered.An Fatt was secretly admiring the new dancer ,a young 19 year old from a small town in Perlis.She was working to pay off the debts her father owned to the Ah Long.But An Fatt knew he wouldnt stand a chance with his disability.
SCENE 7
An Fatt knew his foster father kept all his cash and wife's jewellery in an old safe deposit box hidden in a huge
metal cabinet used to store the stage props.They often moved from small towns to cities to perform.It was more
convenient this way.
"But how to get everyone out,,mmmn this might work,I could use that to pay off the girl's debt and the rest we
could set up a small laksa stall to make a living."
sCENE 8
At the corner of the makeshift stage was a small altar of the God of the Earth"The members prayed and burned
notes before every performance.An Fatt bought some kerosene ,hid it near the perimeters and when his foster
father treated the whole troop to a celebratory dinner at the restaurant ,he would make his move.
The fire gutted the makeshift theatre.The villagers nearby came to help douse the fiery blaze,even Tok Dalang
and his son Kassim pitched in to help.Mr Koo came rushing back with his workers .He rushed in to save his life
savings but never made it out alive.
sCENE 9
Scene of a Teochew puppet show with An Fatt as the puppetmaster.Scene enacted of the filial son who goes to
Hell to plead with the God Of Hades to free his mother from being a hungry ghost.He descends through a part
where souls are boiled in burning vats of oil by the guards with cow heads and horse faces.His mother who was
a lifelong vegetarian had been punished when she inadvertently drank a bowl of pork soup. and lied about it.
Moved by his filial piety,the God of Hades promised that on the seventh day of the seventh Lunar Month,the
gates of Hell would open and the roaming spirits would be freed to eat as much offering as they wanted.When
the angry ghosts or roaming spirits are appeased,they would not disturb the living and the seen and unseen
coexist the rest of the year in harmony.
Ah Chun the mechanic turns into a responsible son and takes care of his widowed mother.
sCENE 10
An Fatt is heartbroken when the pole dancer turns down his proposal.She marries the elderly
62 year old bachelor ( a Getai fan )from Pasir Panjang who owns three shophouses and sells off one of it
to pay off her father's debts to the loan shark.Now she is the towkay so of two jewellery shops.The troupe
is disbanded and some of the puppets end up being sold at the flea market as "antiques".An Fatt moved to the
big city and starts a small business in a digital mall selling computer games.The Zombies or the undead is the
latest craze .and that's how he happened to meet by chance the "old flame" of his youth who came to the city
with her little boy who wanted to buy "The Zombie."She then takes her son to the interactive science museum
where a group of eager children plays with a high tech Japanese designed system which consists of a head
mounted display HMD that shows the performer a live video feed from the puppet's viewpoint,a microphone
for voice capture and photoreflectors for detecing the mouth movement of the human performer.In conventional
puppetry,practising manipulation of the puppet is also required to perform well.The telepresence system
addresses these issues by enabling the human performer to manipulate the puppet through their own body
and facial movements.This would contribute to a new application of puppetry and expand the interactivity
of puppetry and the scope of entertainment.There is also the optical marionette in which the 3D hologram
would reduce the real human figure onto a projected puppet that will imitate the real person's movement and
synthesize his voice. A male could become a female and a human into an animal.The lines between what is
real and not real are blurred.
sCENE 11
Scenes from a Chinese opera-how an ordinary person can be changed into a hero when the real face is masked
by heavy make up and the general's costumes and how a person can be transformed into an animal-a fox or
snake in the next life.How the white snake transforms into a human due to the pursuit of love.(An Fatt learns to
be a Chinese opera star-a romantic scholar,a prince or a general)
sCENE 12
Scene of a modern day cybercafe that captures the souls of humans and makes them into zombies.
Eyes are bloodshot ,face is pale as a ghost in the darkness as the soul zapping machines cast a green eerie glow.
They are caught up in MMPROG of avatars when in real life they are escaping from reality of drudgery of work
and being stuck in dead end jobs)Another shot of trader glued to his computer screen and the scrolling of stock
s run on the screen as the picture of the God of wealth is placed on the side of computer.Modern day zombies walk
into lamp post or car crashes as zombies are glued to the attention zapper.
Scene 13
The wayang kulit is performed by Tok Dalang who has been invited to stage it as a tourist promotional attraction
at the Frankfurt city .The foreigners give it an outstanding applause whereas at his own homeland,he played fo
r a few elderly fans who were fast dying off.The story tells how PuteriDewi Sita was abandoned by her father
Maharajah Sri Rawana at birth because the fortune teller predict that she brings bad omen to the family.
He dumps her in a box at the edge of the sea where she is found and brought up by an old fisherman and his wife.
She grows up as a beauty and marries Dewa Rama who will be the arch enemy of Rawana.
Scene 14
The story also tells the adopted brother of Rama ,Laksamana who is entrusted to protect Rama .Endowed with
special strength and intelligence by the wise old man who lives in a wat with seven golden tiers.He is loyal and
faithful .He is calm and rational,and even gives up his life in the end to defend Rama. against his enemies
To be continued
