THE BLUE MANSION is a quirky murder mystery about a wealthy tycoon who dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances. He returns as a ghost to try to uncover the secret of his death with the help of his family and the police. A film made in Singapore by GLEN GOEI.

★★★☆☆ - i caught this trailer whilst watching another movie and thought - hey, this might actually be a - omg can you believe it - DECENT local movie that i’d enjoy watching! just watched it a few hours ago and im seriously happy to report that IT WASN’T A WASTE OF TIME! even made me chuckle a fair few times.

1. ACTING: 4/5 - none of the overexaggerated bullshit mediacrap sees fit to call ‘acting’, i love the very singaporean characters - complete with decent english littered with a convincing touch of singlish. its high time someone realized that overdoing the singlish in a local english film is just plain lies (as is slanged-to-hell unconvincing proper english)!!! my favourites were Patrick Teo as “Wee Bak Chuan”, Adrian Pang as his second son “Meng” and Neo Swee Lin as the only daugher “Shan”. my god veterans - the last surviving hope for local tv. i also liked Louisa Chong as the grieving wife “Siok Lin”, she has the perfect look and performance for her role as the stern and traditional elder (although dave begs to differ). granted there were some scenes where certain actors felt compelled to overact (cue the Huzir Sulaiman as detective “Suresh Maniam” and Steve Yap as detective “Tan Kok Leong” and the 4 very auntylike cousins) which I didn’t quite fancy even though they really depict certain stereotypes of our society. its so jack neo style - CRASSY plus this doesnt quite work in english, more believable in a hokkien/mandarin language film. im sure there’s better ways to express the unique behaviors than that. HOWEVER i love the flamboyance of Sebastian Tan who plays the funeral manager - fucking threw me in a fit of giggles. well played, he might just be my favourite actor in the show!

2. STORYLINE: 2/5 - this would’ve been a 1 if not for the little parts that made me giggle. i dislike certain lengthier-than-necessary scenes where i find myself thinking, “hey glen, i GET IT already, can we move on cos i can pretty much predict the rest of this scene’s dialogue”. takes the momentum out of the film. i understand building up sympathy for character but nuh-uh, this just makes me bored instead of involved. also overall the story is simple (which is smart cos simple is safe and normally theres little ways you can fuck it up) so i cant give much credit there. synopsis says quirky - can be quirkier. also it needs to be a liiiittle bit more exciting to be able to live up to the expectation of a “murder mystery”.

3. CINEMATOGRAPHY: 4/5 - gasp. im actually impressed! GREAT panned shots (glen must love dollies! with good reason too, the pan shots were my faaaavourite), and BEAUTIFUL lighting (love the water casting light on the grim family’s faces, amongst others). should i thank Larry Smith for this? also, i love how there’re several cuts in simple shots like when someones speaking, unlike mediacrap tv shows where they like to do ‘theatre’ acting and act out a whole scene in front of a still camera, uncut. great for engaging, especially when the dialogue gets a bit repetitive.

4. MUSIC: 4/5 - good job David Hirschfelder. i actually love the music. very appropriate dramatizing of scenes! awesome soundtrack, i might actually want to buy this, really!

overall this is a great film for showcasing singapore’s unique chinese culture and exposing traditional behaviors (like family politics and gossipy-ness) and that was the main reason why i dragged my angmoh boyfriend to watch. theres a murder to be solved but a “murder mystery” it is not, quirky indeed but more please if you want to keep me enraptured. perfect dosage of drama but remove the overacting; more please of witty dialogue but less please of lengthy ones when we already get it (give your audience more credit!). enjoyable enough though not captivating, but beautiful to watch with believable actors. i wont be biased and give this 4 stars just because its a local flick that is actually DECENT (please, other movies deserve that honor hehe) but rather i give it an approving 3 and beam with a little singaporean pride and a hope for future local films. BRAVO! yall should catch this in the theatres if you havent!