Cast
CHUI Tien You, WAI Ying-Hong, NG Meng Hui
Cinematography
TEOH Gay Hian
Music
Pete TEO
Set Design
GAN Siong King
Screenwriting
HO Yuhang
Sound mix
TU Du Chiih
Production
Irresistible Films
Hong Kong
Hong Kong (China)
Coproduction
Pusan International Film Festival
1st Floor, 6 Tongui-dong, Jongno-gu
110-040 Seoul
Korea, South
October Pictures
G/f, 58a leighton road, causeway bay
111-113 How Ming Street
Hk Hong kong
Hong Kong (China)
World Sales
Golden Scene
15b Astoria Building, 34 Ashley Road
Tsim sha tsui, kowloon
Hong Kong HK
Hong Kong (China)
Synopsis:
The film
Malaysia. Chai, a young man of twenty-three, lives with his alcoholic mother, for whom he represents her sole reason for living. He meets Ying, a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, on the Internet and starts seeing a lot of her. But their illicit relationship — Ying is still a minor — is soon discovered by the girl’s parents; distraught, they threaten to have him charged with rape. Chai’s mother, trying to save her son from this accusation, offers Ying’s parents financial compensation in exchange for their silence. Willing to do anything to save him, she goes to her ex-husband that she has not seen since their separation. But Ying’s family turn out to be both greedy and vengeful, as they take the money but still report Chai. Relations between Ying and her parents, whom she flees to join her lover, and those between Chai and his mother become ever more strained when the police intervene, overturning everyone’s plans. Transposing a universal problem to present-day Malaysian realities, filmmaker Ho Yuhang offers an acute portrayal of the doubts and fears of his characters, who do not always realise the implications of their actions, and struggle to articulate their feelings. Inspired by a television news programme whose voyeuristic and sensational approach struck the filmmaker, he analyses the role of the media in society and seeks to work out how such a tragedy came about, reconstructing his characters’ lives and relationships. Thus in Sham Moh (At the End of Daybreak) he explores the roles played by overly strict education and rigid family values, but also by greed and frustration, in a chain of events that leads to disaster.
