Alter Ego - Kelvin Tong

In this debut column, Rajan Chettiar who, when not lawyering, enjoys playing reporter, interviews and profiles members and ex-members of the legal fraternity, who have pursued interests and talents in areas outside of law. In this issue, he meets up with Kelvin Tong, law graduate turned film-maker.

I am a story-teller and I tell my stories through films,' was how Kelvin Tong introduced himself at the start of our interview. A scriptwriter and movie director, Kelvin, with a simple and school-boyish look, counted comically with his fingers as he tried to recall his law school graduation year.

Recounting his childhood days spent watching Chinese movies in his favourite cinemas of old, Kelvin is fascinated by the aura of film. Unlike many of us, a movie, to him, is a multi-dimensional experience. According to him, the lighting, the camera angles, the shots, the movements of the actors and the colours combine to differentiate a good movie from an average one. As Kelvin talks about movies made by renowned film directors, his different tones of voice, his smiling and at times serious demeanour, and mixture of singlish and colourful expressions, leads one to believe in the powerful craft of film-making and the man who speaks about it so passionately. My cold chicken sandwich and note pad forgotten, I enter into Kelvin's movie world.

In Kelvin's world, day and night merges into one. 'I'm not usually up at this time of the day to eat lunch,' he shared whilst we were queuing up at a café in Boat Quay. He hangs out with people from the local movie scene and talks to Chinese towkays in dialect, persuading them in his direct and earnest manner to finance his movies.

Film-making is probably like breathing to this film-maker. 'I do not like to introduce myself as a film-maker to people. It attracts attention - people see me in a different light; they feel that they have to make intelligent comments about movies and immigration officers start talking to me about specific movies,' he said with a grin.

A Victoria Junior College Theatre Studies student, who somehow landed himself in the NUS Law Faculty, Kelvin gave up a promising shipping career in Drew & Napier right in the middle of his pupillage, in response to a telephone call from the editor of the 'Life' section of The Straits Times. His one-year stint with the newspaper saw him write movie reviews and columns in the 'Life' section and brought him to movie capitals like Hollywood and Hong Kong to rub shoulders with its movers and shakers.

His love affair with movies was not satiated until he left Singapore Press Holdings Limited and became a full-time independent film-maker. 'No, there is no such a thing as a Singapore film industry. We are light years away,' he says firmly.

Kelvin's first film, 'Eating Air' (1999), a Mandarin 'motorcycle-kung fu love story about two teenagers allowing their love to run wild on the streets of Singapore', was a product of his realisation that the cost of pursuing a Masters degree in cinema in America could be better spent making his own movie. 'Eating Air' was a small budget film and every effort was made to keep it within budget. 'In Singapore, we cannot make big budget movies. There's no way we can rake in the huge profits. Such movies are best left to the Hollywood giant studios,' he said without a tinge of regret. The movie was well received locally and was featured in local and foreign film festivals, including the Golden Horse Film Awards in Hong Kong. It won the Young Cinema Award at the Singapore International Film Festival 2000 as well as the Jury Prize at the Stockholm International Film Festival 2000 and was a finalist at the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

A self-confessed 'nervous, optimistic fatalist', Kelvin works on projects with such vigour, one would think it was his last piece of work. Although he laments that unlike many of his peers, he cannot forget about his work when he gets home, it is clear that Kelvin's passion for reading is perhaps second only to his love for film-making. Citing authors like Vikram Seth as his favourites, one can almost feel Kelvin's immense pleasure as he describes his state of mind whilst reading Seth's novels. In his view, great storytellers need a large network of family and relatives to feed them with stories.

He sees great movie making material in the lives of local Singaporeans which Singapore film-makers can write and make movies about. He sees this as the reason why local movies like 'Money No Enough' have become popular. 'A factory worker in Tuas has a story to tell, just like a Shenton Way yuppie.' To sustain our local film efforts, he hopes that Singaporeans would watch locally made movies with as much enthusiasm as they welcome Hollywood movies.

Coming from humble origins, Kelvin has no regrets in following his heart. 'I am very happy at this point of my life,' he states emphatically. Legal training makes him understand better the legal issues affecting the entertainment industry in Singapore. Having given up the big bucks he could have made in the legal and print industries, Kelvin feels that no one starves as an artiste in Singapore. They just live simple lives.

His interesting theory as to why there are many lawyers active in the arts scene in Singapore is that these individuals, as a result of their interest and involvement in the arts from young, do arts subjects in junior college. As a result, when they go to university, law faculty is the best faculty they can get into. After lawyering for a while, they leap into the arts.

'I enjoyed shipping law because of the showbiz element in it,' Kelvin reminisced over the short time he spent in shipping practice. 'You meet and communicate with all kinds of interesting characters from diverse backgrounds.' He compares a trial in court to the shooting of a scene on a movie set. 'Just like in court, a movie shoot is often unrehearsed and there is plenty of room for anything and everything to go wrong, and they do go wrong!'

Citing Hong Kong actors as his heroes, he also said in his next breath that he admires carpenters. Thinking that he meant the pop group, 'The Carpenters', it took me a minute to realise that he was referring to the people who make furniture. He marvels at the way these craftsmen create furniture with their bare hands.

A lover of the old parts of Singapore, Kelvin's current project is a movie about the idiosyncrasies of a Singaporean architect and buildings. He takes pride in the fact that his films will freeze parts of Singapore on film permanently. This true heartlander chides people who complain about life in Singapore. 'If you were born, bred and work in Manhattan, you would be bored with Manhattan too!'

Apologising for his candour, Kelvin snuffs out his last cigarette, holds out his hand to thank me and shakes me to reality. I look at him walking in the opposite direction, down a path that is doubtlessly a long and difficult journey but one pursued with love, faith, confidence and a do-or-die attitude.

Rajan Chettiar
Allen & Gledhill