Tonight at 11.30pm at Channel U...

第一诫
Rule #1

Remember to catch it!

http://v.youku.com/v_playlist/f2402420o1p0.html

Photos: Rule #1 - Fiona Xie and Yu Wen Le

Also Known As: Rule #1 (Singapore: English title)
Parents Guide: Add content advisory for parents
Country: Singapore / Hong Kong
Language: Mandarin / Cantonese
Certification: Singapore:NC-16
Filming Locations: Hong Kong, China

Budgeted at S$3.2 million, Rule #1 is a supernatural thriller about a young cop, Sgt Lee (Shawn Yue) who has a near-fatal encounter with a vicious serial killer, during which he is convinced that he witnessed a ghostly occurrence. He places that in his incident report which causes his transfer to the mysterious Miscellaneous Affairs Department (MAD).

MAD is a two-man special police unit that handles supernatural cases. Inspector Wong (Ekin Cheng) is the boss who tells Lee that the number one rule to remember is that there is no ghost in this world. As time goes by, Shawn Yue notices that most of their cases seem to be genuine hauntings, and that Ekin Cheng seems to be hiding the facts of the existence of ghosts. A series of suicides begin, and as Shawn Yue delves deeper, he begins to retreat further into himself, neglecting his home and girlfriend (Fiona Xie).

Rule #1 starts off very interestingly, with a long, drawn-out but very intense sequence in a car park. However, in the midst of the movie, the story takes a turn that requires a huge suspension of disbelief by the audience. But if you're willing to go along for the ride, the film can be somewhat rewarding. There are some great ideas, like the truly creepy screaming swimming pool. But it's the characters and the occasional effective humour that are really the winning points of the film, as the scares are pretty much standard fare (long hair, sudden loud jolts, etc). While the entire story rests on the theme of assumptions and that what you see and hear is not always the truth; it also basically revolves around men who are having women problems. What Kelvin Tong presents is a very dark, very bleak, very depressing men's world, where sometimes the most sincere effort to connect can prove disastrous. At times, the film might be regarded as somewhat morally confused, but the big twist at the end justifies much of what went before.

Rule#1 is a new horror movie, which is a joint production of Singapore and Hong Kong, starring Ekin Cheng, Shawn Yue, Fiona Xie, Stephanie Che etc. The film is directed by award-winning Singaporean director Kelvin Tong, who is also the director of the famous movie "The Maid". The filming was done in Hong Kong.

"(In) this film, we deliberately worked with people from different parts of Asia, in this case with Hong Kong. (We) sort of throw everything up in the air and have something that is fairly unique that we can call as close to our own," said Daniel Yun, CEO of Raintree Pictures.



Comments from Youtube's viewers:

"doesn't look scary, but it has lots of style"

"I enjoyed Tong's 'The Maid' and am looking forward to seeing this and his previous pic 'Men in White.'"

"Opening scene was corny. Yep."