Pa Pa Yeoh (881): Awakening the Inner Beng.

In case you haven't already guessed, this is what has reawakened the inner Beng even if only slightly.



I certainly don't have the credentials to be one. In JC, I was categorised as part of the 'Ang Moh Pai' group (used to refer to the English speaking Chinese). My spoken Mandrian leaves much to be desired, I can barely hold a decent conversation in Chinese. My Hokkien is even worse, I can catch the gist of what people are saying; try to get me to respond in Hokkien however and I falter miserably, my entire vocabulary consisting mainly of creative vulgarities picked up in Army from the true blue Beng camp mates. The closest I ever came to looking like one was during the post JC days when I sported striped highlighted hair bleached golden blond and the brick red cargo pants I bought from TopShop then.

So it was a rather strange turn of events that made me want to catch this locally produced movie when it came out on the 9th of August. After all I almost never watch locally produced movies, the last one being Liang Po Po which was a loooong time ago, because I figure that it'll inevitably turn up on TV within a year or so and paying eight bucks and more for a local movie wasn't appealing.

I guess my curiousity about 881 was piqued because it was about getai (stage performances given nationwide during the Hungry Ghost Festival that lasts about a month) which I'd never actually experienced, the songs were Hokkien and damn Beng and the costumes were so outrageously over the top. So I dragged Sean along to catch it. I thought the show on average was rather glitzy and beng but still enjoyable except for the draggy, weepy bit at the end though Sean proclaimed to be bored.

The songs (and after-images of outrageous costumes and feathered boas) however remained firmly entrenched in my mind and I found myself subconsciously humming along to the decidedly Hokkien-Beng lyrics. So I went to get the soundtrack lo. A lot of Singaporeans must have been similarly affected, for I was informed at two of the Sembawang Music store branches I went to that the Pa Pa Yeoh(881) soundtrack was sold out and they had no more stocks. Apparently, there's an inner Hokkien spouting Ah Beng/Ah Lian wannabe in most Singaporeans.

HMV though proved to be a life saver and it didn't matter if it cost more than at Sembawang, I would have bought it if it cost 40 bucks. That's how bad the Beng-ness was that night. The Soundtrack CD while short did not disappoint the awakened Beng. Blasting the familiar getai numbers from the movie helped to make the still-ongoing drilling much more bearable.

My personal favourite remains the touching yet Beng-y tear jerker song at the end of the movie, Last Breath. Here's the Youtube video showing the MingZhu sisters (who were singing the songs for the Papaya Sisters in the movie) performing the song which looks more moving than that draggy hospital scene at the end of the movie. (Video has been removed from Youtube.)

The popular One Half theme song with the 'Ji Lang Ji Phua, Gam Qing Buai Suah..' opening comes a close second. But I thought the way the twin sisters May and Choy sung their hokkien getai songs was really cute. It had a nice, strange english accented twinge to their hokkien techno songs, yet they sung with such gusto and maxed out the bitchiness in the bad girl characters they were playing that I find their english-influenced hokkien techno songs more attractive than the actual getai singers who recorded for the Original Soundtrack album.

You can judge for yourselves in this Youtube video of May and Choy singing 'Lose Control - Dong Buai Diao' in a live getai event the 881 members participated in shortly after the release of the film. Sadly, they weren't singing the song I thought they did the best 'Bad Times' and they were singing with more gusto in the movie. They were certainly way way bitchier in the movie and their costumes were well, spiky and all dominatrix like.^^



Sean has been subconsciously affected, after listening to the album I'd ripped onto my Creative player, he hummed the One Half tune softly all the way as we were making our way to the stadium to view the fireworks. Everyone has an inner Beng or Lian in them, like it or not. And sometimes, if only for a while, he or she needs to be let out, just to hang loose and be unabashedly beng.

I'll leave you here with the MingZhu Sisters' 'Wild Flowers', another song in the movie. Wa ai zho xiao lian gei. Eh sai buai?



Update: If you liked 881, You'll love Hairspray the movie.