Taiwan’s Sylvia Chang to star in Malaysian film

Sylvia Chang will star in the local flick Shuttle Life directed by Tan Seng Kiat. Photo: Filepic

Veteran Taiwanese filmmaker Sylvia Chang will be making her way to Kuala Lumpur to work on her first Malaysian movie project, Shuttle Life.

Chang, 62, has been cast as the mother of the male lead, played by Jack Tan (of local pop duo ThomasJack).

Directed by Tan Seng Kiat, Shuttle Life revolves around the premise of how the poor survive amid adversity and the moral conflict social workers are faced with when dealing with poverty.

The movie will commence filming in May and is expected to shoot for over 20 days in various locations around Kuala Lumpur.

Shuttle Life was the grand prize winner of the 2014 Golden Horse Film Project Promotion in Taiwan; the award included a cash grant of TW$1mil (RM120,500). The upcoming movie is produced by Ong Lay Jin and Roland Lee, of Malaysian production studio More Entertainment.

More Entertainment founder Ong said Chang offered many practical suggestions during their meetings to discuss the movie.

“We are very thankful for her professionalism.”

Tan, 25, who is set to play Chang’s son in the movie, also gushed, “I never dreamed that I would actually get an opportunity to act with her.”

Recently, More Entertainment notched another win when its new Malaysian film titled Brothers nabbed the HAF/Fox Chinese Film Development Award at the Hong Kong FilmArt 2016. Apart from a development contract with Fox, this award, which is a collaboration between Fox International Productions (Greater China) and the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, also comes with a cash prize of HK$100,000 (RM50,200).

Brothers is inspired by a real-life kidnapping incident, where a mentally disabled boy was kidnapped by his elder sibling who went missing after an earlier kidnapping. The movie also stars Tan as one of the brothers and is due to be filmed in Malaysia.

Film producer Ong beamed with confidence about Brothers: “Local film lovers will have another good film to look forward to. We’ve got the same scriptwriter for Malaysian box office hits such as OlaBola and The Journey.”