BENNY FOO FUNG KOON

1. Describe the movie to us.

Due to the many recent horror movies and thrillers, it has become more challenging to have a breakthrough. “The Spirit Compendium” is not based entirely on a ghost story. And in fact, “The Spirit Compendium” may not belong to any specific category, as it is a fusion of different emotional expressions and spiritual characters, such as love, friendship and a touch of homosexuality, deities and spirits.
The story is about Tom’s girlfriend dies in a tragic accident and he plunges into depression. May is shunned by the people around her because she claims she can see the spirits. Sam’s family loses their fortune and is forced to move in with his friend, Tom and May, his housemate. The three friends embrace on a journey that begins with the mysterious disappearance of Tom’s father, who leaves Tom with only a spiritual book and an ancient Tibetan Dzi Bead. It is not until Sam is trapped in a spiritual realm that they realize the importance of the items.

2. Spirit Compendium is your first feature movie, but what is your background in filmmaking? When did you start?

I was already actively involved in drama and play during my school time and subsequently pass an audition to enter the First Producers Training Course (Drama) and the Fourth Professional Scriptwriting Course organized by SBC(Now as TCS). There I undergo serious training and received guidance from professionals. Along the way, I joined the Acting course from Southern Arts Drama Group to learn and understand the art of acting, speech, performing and body movements and gestures. In the recent months, I had also successfully completed the Hi-Def production and Final Cut Pro6 course to further aid in the proficiency of video editing.
My first Merit award was during the National Scriptwriting Competition in 1985, with the story entitled “Happy Like A Fairy”.
In 1992, I won The Best Direction Award in the Panasonic Video Awards for the short film, entitled “MONICA’. Since 1986, I have directed 15 short films, 7 MTVs, 2 experimental films, 3 documentaries and as a producer and scriptwriting role, involved in 3 short films.
The spirit Compendium, in 2007, is my first featured film.

3. What was the main source of inspiration for Spirit Compendium?

The influence of Chinese cultures, martial arts and beliefs such as geomacracy, fortune telling, has increased tremendously in the western countries over the years. And it has aroused a great curiosity among the westerners due to its mysterious powers. Most, if not all, of these Chinese beliefs is based on the book, I Ching (Wade-Giles), or “Yì Jīng” (Pinyin); also called “Book of Changes” or “Classic of Changes”, is the oldest of the Chinese classic texts. A symbol system designed to identify order in what seem like chance events, it describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy that is at the heart of Chinese cultural beliefs. In Western cultures, the I Ching is regarded by some as simply a system of divination; many believe it expresses the wisdom and philosophy of ancient China. In the movie, The Spirit Compendium is actually referring to a spiritual book that is derived from I Ching.

4. How long did you take to complete Spirit Compendium [timeline from pre-production to post-production?
The whole production of The Spirit Compendium takes a year to complete. The pre-production take up three months. The shooting time is about two month. The rest of it will be spent on the post.

5. Many films that focus on the other side often have 'encounters' - did you?

Well, it so happened that The Spirit Compendium started its filming during the Lunar Seventh Month. As a regular practice and to ensure that our production runs smooth, we carried out incense offering ceremony and prayers to pay our respect to the “other side”.

That was one incident, during our daytime outdoor scene, the sky suddenly turns dark and ugly. It seems that a heavy downpour is expected anytime soon. Desperate to stick to our planned schedule, we actually resort to the burning of joss papers for the spirits, hoping for a miracle. Surprisely, it worked! The sky cleared up in no time and we were back to our shooting again. And amazingly, right after our shooting, a heavy downpour followed by.

6. What are your future plans in filmmaking?

In fact, I am already starting working on my next movie, Seven. After The Spirit Compendium, my next focus will be entirely on Seven’s production. .

卢雪冰Maylene Loo Xue Bing

She started modeling at the age of 17, in between school. Editorials, fashion spreads, print advertisements, and television commercials are the type of jobs she had taken up.
These are a few examples of the above jobs she had mentioned…. Johnsons & Johnsons, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starhub, Cambridge Diet, M&M’s, Visa, Levis, Sony Ericsson, Panasonic, Hewlett Packard, Laurier, etc.

She did a little acting as well. She decided to give it a try when opportunity came knocking on my door. She realized she had enjoyed acting after my first real drama, Mediacorp Channel 5 “Shooting Stars” . Following that,she acted in a short film, “The Sisters”, and also played a small role in “Nine Lives”. With a full time job in hand, she had only the weekends to shoot. It became very difficult for her to take on any roles, until Benny came by and offered me this role in Spirit Compendium, that fits her work schedule. She is glad she had did all that,& it had been great learning experience for her.

Role in this Movie:-

Filming this movie had been quite an experience for me. This is the first time I took on such a role. Though I’m only playing a small part, the exposure was great and I had tremendous fun on the set with the casts and crews. It was a breeze working with the casts and crew, they were easy-going, making work like play! Benny, our director, had been very thoughtful and supportive. He worked accordingly to my schedule as much as possible, for I have a full time job to juggle. I really appreciate the kind understanding and patience from my director, the casts and the rest of the crew. Thank you for making this possible for me.

柯宗耀Michael Kwah Chong Yeow

Profession: Part time model & student

Birthplace: SingaporeHeight: 175 cm, Weight: 63kg , Star sign: Taurus
Favorite Hobbies: Taekwondo & Playing musical instruments eg. Organ, Piano, Guitar

Being an introverted and extremely shy kid from young, he never dreamt that one day he could become a model or an actor. But it all started out couples of years ago, with Shine models & talent agency, whom taught him the ropes of becoming a talent model & about realizing that self-confidence within and unleashing that potential in life. From then on, he was scouted by other agencies and his media adventure began as a fashion runway model for brands labels like Bodyknit, Levi, L’Oreal & Toni&Guys, Jean Pierre & other labels brands etc for Singapore Fashion festivals, did for Mediacorp ch8 drama <爱情零度C> and becos of his fresh he was further selected to do by corporate clients & productions to do hair shows, corporate videos , studios websites shoots and magazines articles for 8 days/ Her World/ U weekly / Zao Bao etc.

His acting journey started when he was selected by Pro-Action Production to take up a challenging role as one of the main cast in their upcoming Aug thriller movie <靈問> and also recently was selected for another minor role in Royston’s upcoming Aug movie
<十二莲花> . Currently holding a full time job in the corporate world & taking a part time Banking & Finance honor degree with University of London, it’s pretty hard for him to balance his schedule but he believe, with God, all his friends’ support & strong determination, he can accomplish anything. And He is really glad that He had taken the 1st step to break out of his comfort zone as now He’s really living my life to the fullest!

Roles in This Movie :-

1) Describe your feelings in this movie?

It’s just hard to express in words, as it’s a total mixture of excitement & anxiety! This movie is just like the adventure of Harry potter series in Chinese version! Haha...I remember when I was ten, I was always fascinated with the idea of imaginary magical beings & places, existing in this world with us & now it’s just like a childhood dream come true! I get to act in a movie that is filled with magic, normal human beings with supernatural powers, ghosts, fairies, heaven & hell-like creatures etc!

Having the idea that you get the power to predict the future through a magical book, & pursuing a quest adventure to find out the great mystical power that lie within that book, it just give any normal ordinary person a sense of empowerment, to be someone different for a change!

2) What is your character in this movie?

I acted as a poor struggling college student, Sam, trying to make ends meet in life, & happen to know one of his customer, Ben & eventually develop feelings for him. Sam is not an outwardly emotional character but his love for Tom is true, essentially, he's like a homophobic male in love with another man. He's very fixed in his ways but he hates the way he loves as it's forbidden, & that left him lingering between the roles.

Due to unforeseen circumstances in life, he became that ‘right-hand’ man or ‘side-kick’ of a young talented wizard, Tom (acted by Ben Ng) in search of his missing father (renowned wizard in the School of magic) & his life destiny to wield the power to bring the balance between the good & evil in the world!

Ben & I are just like “Daniel Radcliffe” & “Rupert Grint” in Harry potter movie! But what I didn’t expect is when our director Benny foo put that little “BrokeBackmountain” twist into the movie by making “Rupert Grint” to have feelings for “Daniel Radcliffe”….

Director Benny asked me to keep it a secret so I shouldn’t comment too much till the firm is out on big screen. But ahem…there is one single lovemaking scene between me and Ben which can be quite tricky. I consider myself a straight frank person, and I'll openly admit that when young, I did thought of a fantasy's of a male relationship other than just your average male bonding relationship. I DO think that this has gone on since the beginning of time, people just don't "talk" about it. It's good to get it out in the open for people to actually think about the topic but eventually throughout the filmin, Ben & I had to remind ourselves many times that we are honest straight guys from head to toe!

It was a bit psychologically difficult at first in this guy-guy lovemaking scene, but everything turned out to be fine, after we had overcome our inner “demons”. At times during filming, when we looked uncomfortably eye-to-eye with each other, we always remind ourselves, “Remember, we like girls, we are straight…we like girls, we are straight…”
3. You come from an English-speaking background, what was it like for you starring in a Mandarin film?

When Director Benny approached me with this role, I was pretty excited & nervous at the same time! As my friends know, since young, I come from a Engilsh-speaking background & had always been communicating in English with all my friends, teachers, colleagues & family & never once in Mandarin. Now in this movie, I had to stop speaking English all at once & start communicating in fluent Mandarin & memorizing & pronouncing a whole bunch of profound Mandarin scripts fluently throughout the whole movie, is a total nightmare & tedious process for me! Every night, I had to bring my script with me to sleep, just dreaming & memorizing my lines & my fellow actors’ lines too, in order to relate & flow in with their scenes. Facing the pressure of my fluent Mandarin speaking co-actors & production’s tight filming schedule, I had to keep up to speed real fast!

It was tough at first with sleepless nights but with patient guidance & support from the director, production people & casts, it’s really a joy filming in this movie & it brings a great sense of achievement at the end of the day, when you realized you can actually live up to the director’s expectation & what your role required of you.

4. How did you prepare for the role in this film?

I believe it’s that determination of not giving up & going all the way to pursue my dream in acting, that keep me going in preparing for this challenging role in this film. In this movie, there are couples of challenges that I’ve faced, & it is not just the language barrier but also my role as Ben’s male “lover”…ha! We had quite a couple of intimate scenes, which we had to express emotions and feelings that are more than your average male bonding relationships eg. the hot massage scene & the bed scene with him etc & these are some of the scenes we find it tough to relate with.

It was psychologically difficult at first in that guy-guy lovemaking scene, but everything turned out to be fine, after we had overcome our inner “demons” & furthermore we did lot of homework like watching tons of male & male bonding Hongkong films together to study their characters/emotions/behaviors, & practicing the “moves” in bed together as we cannot afford to be shy or NG too many times. It was darn embarrassing & hilarious at times as Ben & I are so good buddies & we had never been so close to each other & touching each other all over before~ On the set, we spent around 7-8hrs just filming that bed scene & Ben’s more of a initiator at times, so I just need to flow in with his moves. At the end of the day, we are just so relieved that we managed to get it right.

乐轩Foyce Le Xuan

Hui Hui’s photogenic face and porcelain white skin has made herself a familiar face in numerous of print and television commercials. In 2004, she took part in Jack Neo’s TV Hosting competition, beat over 1000 contestants, stand out as the 1st winner and earn herself as the Main Host of the Variety show programme “Jurong Point Journey To The West”, co-host with Jack Neo and Marcus Chin.
Her sweet angelic face and petite physique makes her very likeable amongst the audience. She eventually contracted to J Team Production as Contracted Artiste for 3 years. From then on she plays various different roles in movies, drama series and sitcoms. Two years ago, she went to Taiwan to advance her singing career and was back last year to involve in a Local Ghost Movie titled “Ling Wen”, in it she played the female lead that have sleepwalk problem and challenge herself with spirits. She also sang for the movie theme song.
Recently, she just completed her 5 months filming for a 110episodes channel 8 drama“Xin Hua Duo Duo Kia”, in it she played a very prominent rebellious role, Linda, the buddy of Ivy Lee. In the show, she lived with Ivy Lee’s sister Constance Song , but super loggerhead with her .
Since Hui Hui’s school life, she participated in numerous beauty pageants and competitions. She was the finalist for Miss Singapore Chinatown 2002 and Miss Singapore Intercontinental 2003 and won various Miss Body Beautiful and Photogenic titles for herself. She is also the 1st winner for ‘Hottest Babe’ exclusively selected by MegaStar Louis Khoo for his own directing Hong Kong Movie campaign in 2003 for the Shaw Movie and was the topic on the Newspapers and Hong Kong magazines.
She has also been featured in over 40 Commercial Advertisements regionally. Some of her more recent ones that appeared in Spore’s TV, Newspapers, Bus-stops, Airport and Magazines are her Ads for Risis Jewellery, Awards Slim, Starhub Prepaid Card, Meyer Resident, Biore Makeup Remover, Sunflower Cooking Oil, Canon Digital, Health Promotion Board, Transitions Optical, DBS etc.
Recently, Hui Hui has just changed her artiste name to Le Xuan, in Chinese it means Happiness Shelter. Hope she can face all challenges in her acting and singing’s path with happiness approach..

Role for this Movie:-

May.. A pathetic character faces struggle with spirits, emotions breakdown and total lost of mind in another unexplainable dimension, almost brought harm to her life by jumping off the building. Most of the time she hides her fear and deep sadness to face the challenge with the uninviting spirits in her life. Helpless about what born within her but yet holding back everything with her strong character.

In the movie, a lot of times I have to act to the air and in the blue screen, depending on own imaginary of the horror spirits. Whenever I have to reach the utmost fear, I will recall my injured face from a car accident in reality. I met with a car crash two months before the start of the filming, my face was almost disfigure as plunged into the windscreen and the glass cracked. I suffered orbital hairline crack, blood clot in the eye, cuts and swollen bruises all over the left side of my face until my eye can barely open. That period whenever I looked into the mirror I will be scared by my own look, the tears and pain in my heart, is a feeling that will live in my memory. After this hurting life experience, I am more able to uncover my emotions when it comes to the character’s suffering. Who will understand the hurt when you are terrified by your own look? And yes, my imaginary horror icon is my disgusted injured face. Lucky I almost recovered from the injury by the start of the filming, however I still need to cover up the wound and bruises with makeup throughout the filming.

Another part of ‘May’ internal thoughts is her undefined relationship with Tom. When it comes to love, she again has to hold back her feelings due to her insecure. Although May and Tom live under one roof and are close together everyday, but she feels that Tom is further and further away from her each day as Tom’s missing for his ex-girlfriend seems to add on and on . May is forever in the reserved position. She knows and understand Tom, watches him by the side, never dare to express too much of her emotions to him. She feels struck and helpless in her position, seeing the guy that she loves and care for in the state of grief because of another gal. She is craving for Tom’s love, in fact she needs Tom care a lot. Facing the mental strains that she has to been through, she deeply needs a shoulder there for her. Her stress, breakdown and sadness never convey to Tom, not wanting him to add on to his grief. She do feel the love from Tom, but never the complete love, and never complete happiness for her. May voices out on her love emotional feelings can only be hear on the theme song, singing from a third party view and also from May’s own view on the tragedy. She seems out of the love tragedy, but in fact she is in it too. Deep down she is also going through the sadness that her most loved going through. But one thing is she can never show it out.

I appreciate the chance given for bringing this character to life. This character has a lot of internal thoughts and struggles, hidden behind her usual gentle attitude and smiley out look.

1. This is the second horror movie you've acted in – are you drawn to the supernatural roles, or are there other genres that you'd really like to explore?
The genres that i will like to explore will be characters with deep thoughts and unhappiness... like professional killer etc.. I have a bit of martial arts background that yet have the chance to use in film.

2. What do you think about the movie, and about your role?
The movie has an unqiue approach to spiritual topic.. My role is a pathetic character faces struggles with spirits, emotions breakdown and total lost of mind in another unexplainable dimension.. When it comes to love, she again has to hold back her feelings due to her inferior and insecure. She feels helpless in her position, seeing the guy that she loves and care for in the state of grief because of another gal..

3. What is your dream role?
Love story. A blind gal, can't see anything, but uses her heart to feel and love.

4. How do you improve your craft as an actress?
Always dare to feel and go through things in life.. This enable me to uncover my different level of emotions and feelings when it comes to playing the characters.

黄鼎融Benjamin Ng Dingrong

充满着青春气息的阳光男孩黄鼎融，为新加坡的娱乐圈注入新活力。 黄鼎融在报业传讯的寻星节目【全民偶像星登场】中，凭着超旺人气和绝佳的临场反应获得冠军。 这名身高1.78公尺的前兼职模特儿具备了一切青春偶像的条件，紧紧地抓住少女的视线，也俘虏了少女们的心。早些时候，黄鼎融在本地曾被台湾著名艺人兼导演张艾嘉看中并受邀演出她执导的电影《海南鸡饭》，但最后因为档期配合不了而错过。不久后，黄鼎融还被本地报章媒体投选为最阳光和最有人气男孩。 黄鼎融初次亮相于本地综艺节目【食在好吃】和电视剧【零楼】 ，最近也参于了舞台剧【生命NO TAKE 2】的演出，获得公众不俗的反应。电影【灵问】是他首部登上大银幕的作品。

Talent-scouted in a Channel U idol search by Mediaworks 'the next big thing', Benjamin was a model-turned -actor who emerged winner with his sunshine good looks and polite demeanour. With his boy next door looks and cheeky grin, Ben exudes a charming innocence that makes anyone take to him immediately .Prior to that, he was voted as the hot favorite winner in the contest for their favorite contestant held by U weekly, Straits time, Zao bao and reporters also voted him as the contestant with the most sunshine, radient idol award just before the results of 'the next big thing' was announced.
Benjamin signed a contract with Mediacorp for 2 years and did a vast assortment of appearances in variety shows and major charity shows like Ren ci & President stars charity show and also sing alongside Hong Kong veteran singer Nancy sit. His first foray into acting is as Cynthia Koh's student-turned young husband in the legal drama 'Fa ting qiao jia ren' He had also appeared in Mcdonalds and Starhub tv commercials and as the lead actor in Hong Kong singer 周麗淇 Niki chow's video. He has also snagged the lead role of the chinese film 'The spirit compendium'. Benjamin has currently just finished his latest project, a chinese gospel musical <生命NO TAKE 2> with veteran actors like Desmond sim.

Role in Movie:-

WHAT IS ZHOU XU(TOM) LIKE IN THE MOVIE?

Tom is an innocent, easy going and helpful army guy who learns about his life’s destiny to protect his love ones from unanticipated dangers with his new found power. And like “Daniel Radcliffe" in Harry Potter, Tom wields his magical powers to search for his missing father and the real mystery behind it.
His character strength is also his weakness, when it causes him to be in a web of complex relationships. First is his relationship with his dead girlfriend bella(played by maylene) and housemate May (played by Hui Hui). Second is when the plot further takes a twist- Broke Back Mountain Style, when Sam (played by Michael) starts to have feelings for Tom.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE OBSTACLES U FACE AND HOW DID U PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE MOVIE.
I remembered i was still having chicken pox few weeks before filming but i am glad everyone on the set was very nice,always making sure that i was feeling all right.i was very worried about the spots on my face and body but the director assured me that everything will be ok.
The script was also pretty difficult this time round because there were quite a bit of long Chinese phrases and scriptures to memorize.Therefore i had to ensure that i found out what the all the scriptures meant so i could memorise it and say it with conviction.
I also did some homework and some research to finding out what “ling wen shu”-the book was all about, Fengshui, and the powers of “tian zhu”.

-WHAT WAS THE MOST CHALLENGING SCENE?
I guess both sam and myself would agree that the one single scene that was particularly tricky was the juicy lovemaking scene.The sex scenes with bella was very smooth but sex scenes with a man was my very 'first time'.
I recalled how the director had passed us some DVDs to watch to prepare ourselves for it and that definitely helped.Initially it was awkward, causing lots of laughter and several takes, but after awhile I overcame the psychological barrier.

WHAT DID U LIKE MOST ABOUT THE MOVIE?
The cast & crew. They were a fun-loving and patient lot. I feel I have learnt tremendously from their experiences and interacting with them.

-DESCRIBE YOUR FEELINGS & THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS MOVIE?
While growing up, I was always fascinated with the possibility that magical beings and places co-existed in our reality. I vividly remember at times, I would play ‘pretend’ and have super powers so that I could make my vegetables taste more delicious. Acting in this movie was a dream come true that allowed me to relive my childhood fantasies.
Just imagine possessing a magical book that has the power to answer any question you desire to know, to save your friends from unparallel dangers and has unlimited powers that would give you an adventure of a lifetime- Spirit Compendium was an exhilarating and surreal experience.
With ghosts, fairies, heaven & hell-like creatures and more, I would like to think that this is the Chinese version of the ‘Harry Potter series’, only better. (haha)

The Spirit Compendium Theme Song << 祝.福 >>

电影 << 灵问 >>主题曲 词曲: 邹智源
<>
<< 祝.福 >>

When Love is Lost and buried
爱在此刻，埋葬以后，
Can the yearning of my heart be felt
思念的心，是否能被看透。
I can be so close to you
只能靠在你的背后，
But I am still waiting, in our worlds apart
你的世界却依然那么遥远。

Fate is telling us that we are not meant to be
再没有相遇的那一天，
And now, we have learnt to stop shedding tears
再没有为了我而流泪，
Just like a bird released from its cage
断了弦的音符，
We found freedom, away from our memories
往自由的天空飞。
Should my heart be drowned in tears
你若看见我流泪，
then it shall be, but only in mine
不要伤悲。
Your happiness will again return
你拥有的幸福，
For my blessings has found its way
刻上我对你的祝福。
Time without direction is meaningless
不需要任何天长地久，
And promises are nothing, when fate has walked its end
也不需要承诺到天荒地老。
When waves of memories subside
等待回忆消失，
I will be embraced by loneliness
等待寂寞来世。

Autograph Session