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Ao from Freedom does a Planet Terror parody outside Sunrise’s entrance. Read : Authorized personnel only.
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Natsu wa Soumen da ! Sappari shita !

There’s nothing like some refreshing Soumen with Tempura in the sizzling summer heat. Peculiar as it seems summer temperatures in Tokyo can get higher than Singapore, so to keep cool eating Soumen’s a great idea, not to mention tasty.

I remember my first summer in Tokyo 3 years ago, when I was still staying with my good friends Takeshi+kojima. It was a particularly hot day and I had prepared a bowl of steaming kimchi ramen for lunch, something which my two Japanese friends found incredibly amazing. As a person born in the tropics I was certainly up to the task of finishing that bowl of ramen even in summer temperatures, but to the two of them the notion of eating hot noodles in summer was so insane they that stared at me as if I was about to feast on some live centipedes.

I’m in the midst of a much needed one week holiday after the completion of Freedom 4 and am just spending most of my free time doing nothing…and enjoying every minute of it.

The article as in appeared in Straits Times. Big thanks to all the folks who sent word of support, and also Mr Kwan for the article.

Its mad rush hour again for Freedom 4, but I will try to write a little more if time permits.

What’s Spring in Japan without some (pretty) pictures of Sakuras to show.

The ending credits for Freedom. That’s me right there ! See it ? No ?

My apologies…i’m just this excited little bloke.

The year was 1989. I was on a usual weekend family visit to my grandparents place. It was totally mundane and largely routine; we would always arrive in the mid afternoon, have dinner prepared by my grandmother, and then head home around 9 or 10 o’clock. But something that would transpire that evening made it an unforgettable day etched forever in my memory. My youngest uncle, whom me and my brother liked immensely because of his huge collection of Japanese comics and cartoons, was once again poised to impress us with his latest acquisitions. Popping the laserdisc ( I still remember vividly those huge and cumbersome laserdiscs, awkward by today’s standards but state of the art then ) into the player as the film started, the television screen was filled by the image of a huge and hulking crater, as a bold red title appeared.

The film was Akira. Neither me nor my brother had ever seen anything as devastatingly powerful and at once shocking; indeed, few animation films past and present can challenge the sheer awe and depth of this groundbreaking animation masterpiece. I was immediately hooked; I must have lived and breathed Akira for years to come, watching the film countless times and poring over the comics, its imaginative and detail artwork the stuff I wish I could one day, if even just a tiny percentage of that beauty, recreate.

Fast forward 17 years into the future, I am now 27 and on a film scholarship here in Tokyo, Japan. Its a cold October evening and I’m rushing around like a madman in Ogikubo, searching frantically for the studio where I was supposed to attend an interview for a job that should have started 30 minutes ago.

“Where the hell have you been ? Get the f**k outta here, we do not entertain late comers.” These nightmarish thoughts, soon to become reality I figure, flashed over and over again in my mind.

* * *

One hour later. I emerged from the studio, bowing profusely. The director said he liked the work he saw on my website, hopes for me to begin work with them soon.

The name of the studio, stuck nonchalantly on the door, read Steamboy Studios; the name of the assignment that I am soon to embark on : Project Freedom; character designer; Katsuhiro Otomo.

I’m greatly honoured to join the Project Freedom committee, standing on the shoulder of giants. To me, the chance of working on a Otomo Katsuhiro film is nothing short of a dream come true. I live a blessed life, I think.

Here are the 300kbs, 500kbs, and 1Mbs previews of Freedom.

Some production photos from the locations of my final year film project. More updates coming soon.

A recent 16mm film shoot filling up 2 weekends have had me appreciate the value of sleep in a way I had not since the army days; let’s hope at least the rushes turn out decent. As we wrap up things on this shoot preproduction starts for my final year project, in between a serious and earnest lookout for a job opening here in Tokyo. Amidst these hustling events just as I am about to lose sense of all time and purpose an appropriately timed present from my Korean sharemate ushers me back to one of my most cherished creative inspiration; a book procured from a 2nd hand book store; a Iwai Shunji’s Love Letter photobook, for less than 1.50 singapore dollars. To me, its true worth can hardly ever be calculated.

I could have just died of esctacy right there in Shinkiba’s club Ageha on Friday when Paul Van Dyk finished up his dizzying 3 hour set with the mind blowing tunes from his magnum opus track “For An Angel”. PVD me anytime, anywhere.

The annual retreat back into wilderness and the embrace of everything natural continues this year with a 5 day travel itinerary to Takasaki in the Gunma Perfecture, hometown of my very good friend Takeshi. Here ample thanks and gratitude must be appropriated to my hosts Takeshi+Kojima whom without them this trip would never have been possible. We travelled far and wide for hours to distant mountains and waterfalls, cabbage farms so huge and wide it was like standing in the middle of the world; quiet, undiscovered villages that could only have appeared in quaint old Japanese films. One night a miraculously timed, passing glance into the starry skies had us catching a beautiful, long tailed shooting star. What are the odds.

Takeshi’s father is a farmer so every trip back to Takasaki is like a dietary detox session; an astonishing variety of homegrown vegetables are eaten and meat consumption drops to a virtual zero.

Kojima attempts a Kodak moment.

The Ito residence.

No, I didn’t digitally enhanced the colours on these flowers; they were of the very same intensity I saw with my own eyes, but Takeshi quickly informs : “Erm..these are actually the flowers of…weeds.” Killjoy.

Takeshi+Kojima+loadsa’cactus.

Bloody crazies Vol II. Pizzacato5ive art directs a soon to be released print ad for the Takashimaya NAC scholarship. Too radical perhaps for MITA, but stylish nontheless. Photography by Kenneth.

Bloody crazies these blokes. Image courtesy of Pizzacato5ive.