AT THE END OF DAYBREAK
SHAM MOH (At the end of daybreak)
The PR Factory & Golden Scene Company Limited are proud to announce that the Malaysian film AT THE END OF DAYBREAK (Sham Moh) by HO Yuhang won the NETPAC PRIZE (Network for Asian Cinema) at the 62nd Locarno Film Festival. The Jury was composed of Tiina Lokk (Estonia), Patrick Frater (Hong Kong), Paul Venugopal Bina (India).
(from left to right : director HO Yuhang, producer Lorna TEE, actor CHUI Tien You)
AT THE END OF DAYBREAK was the first Malaysian film to compete in Locarno !
The film takes place in Malaysia now. 23-year-old Tuck Chai is dating Ying, a schoolgirl who isnt yet 16 but their parents know nothing about the illicit relationship. Tuck Chai lives with his mother, a woman who has never got over her husband abandoning her. She drinks too much, and doesn't look after herself too well, but she would do anything for Tuck Chai. When Yings parents want to report Tuck Chai to the police with the charge of statutory rape for having sex with a minor, Tuck Chais mother pleads with them to settle out of court for cash compensation instead. After receiving the money, Ying's selfish parents decide that they want to go to the police regardless. Events become a blur. Ying tricks her parents and goes for a fateful meeting with Tuck Chai. The tensions between Tuck Chai and his mother become explosive. Before long, several lives are ruined and the police are involved after all....
Director HO Yuhang was born and raised in Malaysia. His debut feature MIN (2003) won the Special Jury Prize at the Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes (France). His subsequent features and shorts have won more prizes in various festivals including Rotterdam International Film Festival. HOs previous film, RAIN DOGS (2006), was selected in Venice in the "Horizonti" section.
Produced by Lorna TEE, AT THE END OF DAYBREAK (Sham Moh) is HO's fourth full-length feature. This Malaysia-South Korea-Hong Kong co-production was filmed entirely in Malaysia with two Hong Kong lead actors WAI Ying Hung and CHUI Tien You - as well as Malaysian talents Jane Ng Meng Hui, Chew Kin Wah and Mandy Chong.
Since his prize-winning debut with Min, Ho Yuhang has chosen to focus on characters in trouble often people without the perspective or the language to fully understand their own predicaments. To start with, his films were mostly framed in long-shots, as if he was providing the bigger picture that often eluded his characters. More and more, though, hes entering his characters inner worlds and exploring their doubts, fears and manias. And although hes still a matchless observer of contemporary Malaysian realities, this shift is bringing him closer to one of cinemas greatest traditions. Its femme fatale may be only fifteen years old and its confused and solipsistic anti-hero may be just 23, but At the End of Daybreak is, amongst other things, a modern Malaysian film noir. (Tony Rayns)
director : HO Yuhang
duration : 94 min.
Country: Malaysia/Hong Kong/South Korea
World Premiere
Official Competition
D O W N L O A D S
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