10 Voices Interview: Eric Khoo
In-depth interview with the man who put Singapore filmmaking (back) on the map.
Eric Khoo revived an art form lost in Singapore.
Starting with low-budget shorts in the early 90’s, and leading up to his first feature-length film, Mee Pok Man, five years later, Eric has put Singapore filmmaking on the international festival map.
This marked a revival for an industry that had largely faded into obscurity since the golden age of Malay cinema which came to an end around the time of Singapore’s independence in 1965.
Asiaweek once named him one of Asia’s 25 trend-makers, he’s been nominated for the Palme D’Or at Cannes, won Singapore’s Presidential Cultural Medallion in 2007, and was instrumental in the creation of the Singapore Film Commission. In 2010, Eric had a retrospective of his work held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Over cold Tiger beers on a muggy Singapore evening, Eric recounts his life in filmmaking, past and present, with Sibyl Entertainment’s Theo Sanders.
Theo Sanders (Right): Let’s start right at the beginning. How did your journey in film begin?
Eric Khoo (Left): I owe a lot to my mother, who used to bring me and my sister Jacqueline to the cinema each week. It was during one of these trips, when I was maybe 11 or 12, that she brought me to see a film that’s totally glued in my mind, Taxi Driver. Up until then I had been on a diet of largely horror films.
Of course back then films were heavily censored, but I suddenly realised there was more to horror films than just monsters and dinosaurs which my mum loved.
My mother had a Super 8 Canon camera that she used to film us as kids, before she stopped. One day, I was looking for her old comic books, when I discovered the camera. There was still a cartridge inside!
Back then I used to read this magazine called Famous Monsters of Film Land. I remember there was an issue which featured King Kong and stop motion. So with that manual camera, I started filming my GI Joe action figures, where their 21 points of articulation came to life.
I would show it to grown ups and they’d be like “How’d you do that?” They thought I was a magician.
Drawing, comics, and monsters were a big part of my childhood. I never thought, in my wildest dreams, I’d actually be making films as an adult. Because growing up, there were hardly any Singaporean films, it was just local television.
What was the lay of the land of Singapore’s film industry then?
Actually back in the late 1930’s, we were already producing films here. Sir Run Run Shaw used to get a lot of Malay talents, with Indians as directors and technical crew. He’d be the financier and the producer, and made a lot of films that captured the imagination of Southeast Asia. Some of those films back then had bigger budgets than what we have today. They were really doing well, and actors like P. Ramlee were big celebrities.
Then the Japanese came. One of the Shaws related this to me, but when that happened they thought “God, we’d better escape this island or maybe we’ll be beheaded”. So they chartered a boat to take them to Australia. But they didn’t succeed getting on board as it arrived late and they decided to go into hiding.
Which turned out to be a blessing… the boat was torpedoed. If the Shaws had got on it, there would be no Shaw cinema and no Shaw Brothers today. During the war, they couldn’t show any American films, only Japanese ones. So they became very close with the Japanese studios, and a friendship grew out of that.
After the war, the Shaw brothers were able to take these creatives from Japan and do films like the One-Armed Swordsman, but in Chinese. Sir Run Run Shaw was here from the late 1920s until the mid 50’s, when he decided to relocate to Hong Kong. That’s when he started making martial arts films in the 60’s and 70’s. The rest is legend.
A lot of our Malay talent started going to Malaysia to do projects there prior to Singapore’s merger with Malaysia in 1963. In the meanwhile, maybe 8 out of 10 films leading our box office in the early 70’s would be from Hong Kong, which for us was the ultimate in cinema. Hong Kong churned out all the Bruce Lee movies which I watched as a kid. By the late 60’s, it wasn’t really feasible for us to make our own films anymore. Our domestic market was just too small and our tastes had changed.
Sir Run Run Shaw (c) ST
Is there still an active community of Malay and Indian filmmakers today?
Today, yes. There are quite a few prolific Malay and Indian directors. We worked with one named Don Aravind for the HBO originals anthology series Food Lore. He did a segment in India, which was really good. There are also Raja Gopal (A Yellow Bird), Raihan Halim (Banting) and Sanif Olek, (Sayang Disayang) our local entry to the Oscars 2014
So it’s against a backdrop of a waning Singapore film industry that you got started...
Yeah. I started by making short films. It was in 1991, when the Singapore International Film Festival started the short film competition section and I submitted a short called August, when I’d just finished in the army. I used a Hi8 Sony camera which my mother had bought sometime ago.
Back then I had a Pomeranian named Dumont that has since passed on. I always wondered “What’s it like being so small?” In order to get the perspective of a small dog, I used a dustpan, and had the RCA cable go up the handle to a little monitor. The whole film was just from the point of view of a small dog and it actually bagged the top prize.
I was very happy, and started touring the festival circuit. When you start going to the international festivals, you realise there are many aspiring indie short filmmakers.
Back then I still had to use Hi8 tapes, and later go to a post-production house and ask the people there, “Can you help me?” I told them if I win, I’d split the prize with them. It was a lot of work, but that’s how I got started.
I started submitting short films to festivals. Sometimes I’d win, sometimes I wouldn’t. In 1994, I submitted a short film called Pain, which was banned in Singapore. But because all the judges were foreigners, it was allowed to compete. For years after that it couldn’t get a screening here. I won the “Best Director” prize and the new special achievement award which was a sponsorship from Kodak, a post-production house and camera rental facilities.
I always tell people if you want to be a filmmaker today, it’s not difficult because you can do anything, even make a film with your phone. Back then it wasn’t so easy.
Was the Kodak sponsorship what opened the door to feature films for you then?
I was itching to do a feature film. I went to see all these sponsors, offering to credit them. Kodak actually gave me more film, but it still was not enough. When you watch the movie (ed: Mee Pok Man), it comprises a lot of master shots. I didn’t have enough film to do more coverage.
Mee Pok Man was shot on a small budget, but we grossed close to $400K in Singapore, and the film got into Berlin, Venice, and over 30 other festivals. Suddenly I realised, “This little film has gotten us somewhere!”
That led to a Company called Springroll, a subsidiary of Pony Canyon asking me if I had another idea for a film. So I made 12 Storeys, which featured three units in a block of flats with three different situations all happening on the same day. The film eventually brought me to the Cannes Film Festival.
(in 2017, Eric became the first Singaporean to be a judge at Cannes) (c) Anthony Jones)
12 Storeys is the film that’s been widely credited with revitalizing the Singapore film industry. Is this the point you took a break from directing?
After that, I felt kind of lonely. So I started producing the works of other film directors like Jack Neo, Royston Tan, Boo Junfeng, and younger filmmakers. I did that for seven years until I started feeling the itch again.
What had changed by then?
I decided to make Be With Me. Digital was just coming in. I used a VariCam, and it was fantastic. What would have cost maybe $100,000 on film, I could now do with just $5,000 on digital tape.
So digital was really a game-changer...
Totally. That’s why everybody can be a filmmaker now if they want to. You just start off making short films, and then you progress. It’s a lot cheaper.
Be With Me became the opening night film for the Cannes Director’s Fortnight. It was great for us and, when we got there, we had a very strong international sales agent, so we were able to sell the film to 20 territories right then and there.
I thought, “wow, it’s time to direct more films!” So I made My Magic which was, and is still, the only Singaporean film that went into the main competition.
I made My Magic for a paltry sum, because I’d just received the Cultural Medallion award, which came with a grant of $80K. I knew this magician called Francis for many years (ed: Bosco Francis, who went on to win Best Actor at the Asian Festival of First Films). I’d always joke with him and say “Look, I’ve got to film you doing your frightening magic tricks before you get too old. It’s great you can do all these fantastic tricks like eating glass, and I won’t have to pay for special effects!”
He’d just turned 60, and when I got the grant we started with just the skeleton of a story, and shot it in nine days. It’s the story of the love between a father and his son. A mad, drunken father who can eat glass, and do insane things to his body.
Cannes wrote to me as they heard I had a new film in the works so I sent a VHS of the assembled cut. We hadn’t even put in the effects for the closing scene and the sound was still very raw yet, they said they wanted the film. I guess they were drawn to this incredible magician who filled the screen and brought the film to life.
(Bosco Francis in My Magic, 2008 film by Eric Khoo )
It sounds like you’ve had a love affair with ghosts and monsters, mystery and magic since you were a kid. What else drives you?
Food! In Asia, a lot of us really love food. If you ask me what culture we have in Singapore, our culture is Rojak (ed: an eclectic mix) food culture. There’re all these different ethnic groups getting together around cuisine. You can get Indian dishes here that are not even available in India.
So I’ve gotten directors from all over Asia who I appreciate to come on board to make this HBO anthology series called Food Lore. The idea is that food becomes a character. The episodes can be funny, they can be sad, but they’re all about food. We had some amazing stories come out of this. One was done in Japan called Life in a Box, about the kind of Bento boxes you get on trains. These characters are thinking about leaving town, but when they taste the bento, their memory comes back of why they were there to begin with. It’s inspiring and beautiful.
I’m also currently working on a new series. You see, I love ghosts. And I love food, so...
Food seems to be a recurring theme. Can you tell us a little bit about making Ramen Teh?
It was a co-production with Japan. We really wanted to create a new dish. I wasn’t about to make a film about a dish that didn’t exist and didn’t actually taste good. So what I did was get together with a friend of mine, who makes ramen noodles from scratch to supply to the restaurants. We were trying different intensities of bak kut teh broth, with different widths of noodles. Some of the noodles with more yolk, some with less. We finally managed to get the noodles right, and created this intense bak kut teh broth to go with it.
The film was a dream for me. During my teenage years, there was this pop idol called Seiko Matsuda. She was the biggest thing, and even today she’s like the Madonna of Japan. My producer friend knew her. We sent her the script, and she said “I’ll do it.” That was a “wow” moment for me. So when she arrived here I got my old vinyl’s out for her to sign. It was awesome and the fanboy in me came out!
(Eric Khoo & Seiko Matsuda, (c) Marcus Goh)
So many of your stories, even the international co-productions, reveal the culture we have here (in Singapore). Is it unfair to say this is too sterile of a place to make good films and breed creativity?
I love this place, and can’t leave. The only thing that’s truly sad is that it’s a very small land mass. So a lot of buildings and places dear to my heart got demolished. I’ll never see them again.
I remember all the sampans on the Singapore River, and the kampungs (ed: traditional villages), and the pig farms. There was so much vitality, an old world charm. I’m nostalgic, and wish more of old Singapore had stayed on.
There’s a language thing too, which is a challenge. I feel there’s certain quirks about being a Singaporean which I don’t know whether Westerners will pick up on. There’s no way to make a big action film here because we have a limited audience and our budgets are paltry and it’s difficult to beat Hollywood.
I shot Mee Pok Man in Geylang. You know, Geylang is amazing, and 25 years ago it was even more amazing. And Tiong Bahru also. There are all these interesting pockets in Singapore. The question is whether you want to look for them.
How does that translate into the kinds of films Singaporeans can make?
So we either make a lot of small, artistic films, or we do something that’s very commercial. The latter will probably just work in the Singapore and Malaysia market, like with a rom-com or horror film. It’s difficult for our work to travel, even to Taiwan. It’s a different sensibility there. And our Chinese sensibility and humor are again different from that of mainland China. Unfortunately they don’t need anybody else, a local film there can make up to USD800M in China.
Horror seems to be universal...
There was a time when a lot of Asian horror films were getting US remakes, like Dark Water, or Shutter from Thailand.
What defines the Asian horror genre for you? Or, I suppose, to rephrase that, how would you contrast it with Hollywood horror?
I think anything coming out of Asia is a lot more spooky and terrifying. In Singapore, we’re damn superstitious and so are the Japanese. They don’t believe in God, but they do believe in ghosts.
In Malaysia, they like horror movies mixed with comedy.
Because of that, we’re able to come up with a different type of narrative. I’ve been doing a lot of investigating into different kinds of spirits in Malaysia and Indonesia.
I’m only familiar with the pontianak... (ed: malevolent female ghost in Malay culture)
Yes. In Indonesia it’s called the kuntilanak.
There’s also a certain type of ghost I’ve been very scared of since I was small. The Chinese call it “仔仔”, which means baby ghost. It’s taking an aborted foetus, and giving it power. I was telling a Vietnamese guy about it, and he said “Oh… we chop off the head, the arms, the legs, and put every part into a different bottle. They split the spirit up...”
… to contain it I assume?
To contain it, yes.
The Thais do it differently, they would burn the foetus’ chin and take the oil, and drip that into a small bottle so it’s like an amulet. Sometimes, Thais will take these amulets to the casinos so the baby ghosts can help them win. And you’ll actually see casino staff placing sweets underneath the table to try and distract the baby ghosts.
So all around Asia, in Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, you have these different permutations of baby ghosts.
But it’s sometimes a challenge translating our horror to cater to Western audiences. For instance, Asians believe that when you die, your soul will be around for 49 days. But if you’ve done too many bad things, you can’t go anywhere and you’ll be earthbound indefinitely, or be banished to Hell. How can you communicate that to Western audiences?
When you do a zombie flic, everyone can understand that. But when you start going into 12,800 hells under the earth and the whole karma-thing... they won’t get it.
((c) Julia Wytrazek | Culture Trip)
It’s clear Japanese culture has had a big influence on you. What is it about that culture that appeals to you?
The food! And the aesthetics. If you look at a tatami floor for example it’s all very simple but gorgeous. Everything has a certain look and feel to it. Everything they do, they do with so much pride. It’s ingrained. Even the way they wrap a box.
I love the music of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Ryuichi Sakamoto. The movies back then, the Kurosawa films, were wonderful. And there were so many incredible superheroes coming from Japan, like Ultraman and Kamen Rider
I suppose that fascination is what led you to making Tatsumi?
I’ve read a lot of comics. I discovered the works of Yoshihiro Tatsumi around 30 years ago when a friend gave me a compilation of 12 short stories. After that, I would always look for Tatsumi’s compilations.
Then, I read his autobiography, A Drifting Light, and I suddenly realised, “My god, I didn’t know anything about this man. I just liked his stories.” I couldn’t sleep after reading it, this guy’s seen and done so much. I didn’t know he started the whole Gekiga movement.
He was this guy that brought all the dirty shit and humanity out into the field of comics. But he was virtually unknown in his own country. I had this good friend, Masato from Fujifilm, and I asked him if he could find a way to get me in touch with Tatsumi. So he wrote this very old-fashioned style Japanese letter on my behalf on Fujifilm letterhead.
Sensei agreed to meet, about two months after I read the book. I met with him in an old coffeeshop in a basement with a translator. It was all smoky down there. I don’t think the translator really understood what I wanted, but I had my sketch book with me. When Tatsumi saw that I had sketches in there, his eyes suddenly lit up. He was like, “Oh he can draw too.” I discovered that he’d always wanted to be a filmmaker.
Why hadn’t he already done so?
Because he didn’t like to talk to people. He’s a very introverted figure. But he was charming and hilarious too, and very inspired by French cinema. He loved cinema. When we got to Cannes, he squeezed my hand. This was before the screening, and I could feel his excitement. He’d finally made a film, and he was at Cannes.
We sold the film to a lot of territories, even countries where his books weren’t really read before. People loved it, even James Gunn of Guardians of the Galaxy. I met James and he goes, “Tatsumi was great!” After the release of the film, Tatsumi’s works were reprinted and there was a revival.
Unfortunately, by then he already had late stage leukemia and he passed away a few years ago.
But what made me really proud is that my 12-year-old son, Christopher composed the beautiful music for the film on his piano.
(Eric Khoo’s Tatsumi, 2011, (c) Zhao Wei Films)
You’ve got four boys right? Are any of them looking to follow in your footsteps?
Yep, four boys. The eldest boy, Edward wants to make films. When he was 17, he actually made a short film that he wrote, shot, and directed. It was a very good and economical film. He just rigged the camera on the bonnet of a taxi, and one camera inside, so it’s just the taxi driver and the passengers. Everything happens virtually within the cab. He was invited to film festivals and he’s currently working on a horror script.
For Singapore’s storytellers, what doors do the OTT players like Netflix and meWATCh (ed: formerly Toggle) open?
I think it’s brilliant. Also, these shows can be shared across Southeast Asia.
Countries like Indonesia and Vietnam are growing quickly. If you look at Vietnamese products, they are almost a clone of Korean television, films, and even characters. But in Vietnamese. They want to hear their own voices, their own language. Whatever is being produced, whether it’s good or bad, there’s a market there now. That’s wonderful.
But for filmmaking, government support is also very important.
Locally, we have the Singapore Film Commission, what role have they played?
They’ve been very supportive. You won’t find much of this sort of assistance across the rest of Asia. To make even a short film, you still need to get some sort of grant. What they’ve got now is first and second feature film grants. That’s brilliant, because a lot of films they’ve supported have been to the festivals.
But I think everyone is waiting for that mega hit film. We still haven’t had that yet, but I think the time will come. It’s good to have original films.
The French, for instance, they have this entertainment tax. That means when you go see a Marvel film in the cinema, something like 20% goes into a fund. As a result, they have USD800M a year going into French films.
For more about Singapore Film Commission, check out the previous 10 Voices interview with its Director, Joachim Ng, here. To receive the entire series to your inbox, just click the button below & enter your email address. It’s free.
There seems to be a strong correlation between successful film industries and government support. It doesn’t happen by accident.
Korea is a good example. I was actually at the Berlin Film Festival having a coffee with a top film critic named Tony Rayns. These two old Korean gentlemen come in, and they’re talking to him in Korean. They tell him how they want to create a festival in Busan. Tony also does festivals you see, and he gave them some kind of blueprint.
I asked, “are you going to help them?” And he says, “of course.” The following year, the Busan film festival starts.
The Koreans would send their young filmmakers to America to learn. The Korean films I grew up with were very classical, very old world. Suddenly it all changed, and the films became accessible and colorful.
What’s your perception of the impact Crazy Rich Asians and Parasite made on how people see Asian cinema?
Parasite winning best film was unprecedented, so there are a lot of eyes looking this way. I also feel a desire not just to work with Singaporeans, but other Asian filmmakers too.
It’s an exciting time. Like in the Philippines, you meet some of these young filmmakers who can do things on a real shoe-string budget. For the films we’ve made, we always believed in shooting on a shoestring because, at the end, you don’t want to lose money and still create something special.
For American drama, you can’t really watch them on the big screen anymore. It’s all moving towards TV. On the other hand, here you have directors like Bong Joon-ho (ed: Parasite).
That guy, he’s a real genius and he started off with very small films like Memories of Murder. Then he started going into the fantastical. He’s one of those directors who I feel is always very diverse and talented.
I take from listening to you speak about what’s happening in Asia that, at the end of the day, you’re real optimist for film in Singapore & the region.
Touch wood. We’ve been very lucky. It’s always a team effort, meeting the right people at the right time. We have a lot of young producers coming out of school now who are really good. Right now there’s this guy, his name is Jeremy Chua. He was our intern for My Magic, he produced A Yellow Bird, which went to Cannes.
It’s always good to see young talents in the industry. It can be tricky, and Singapore is small, but with all the support and OTT platforms I think we’ve got somewhere to go now.
Thank you Eric! Another beer…?
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