Taxi! Taxi!

Taxi! Taxi! (simplified Chinese: 德士当家; traditional Chinese: 德士當家; pinyin: déshì dāngjiā) is a 2013 Singaporean comedy film^[3] based on the 2010 work Diary Of A Taxi Driver by Cai Mingjie, said to be "Singapore's most well-educated taxi-driver". Directed by Kelvin Sng and produced by Chan Pui Yin for SIMF Management,^[1] the film stars Mark Lee, Gurmit Singh and YouTube personality Chua Jin Sen,^[4] better known by his online handle "Dr. Jia Jia".^[5] It is Chua's professional film debut. The film follows two fellow taxi-drivers' (Lee and Singh) quest for self-discovery.^[6] Distributed by Golden Village Pictures, the film was commercially released in Singapore on January 3, 2013^[7] and slated for a January 24, 2013 release in Malaysia.^[8]

Plot

In the prelude of the movie, PhD microbiologist Professor Chua See Kiat (Gurmit Singh) is hanging out on a rooftop when a cab-driver named Ah Tau (Mark Lee) mistaken him for attempting suicide. This makes Ah Tau to receive a fine for illegal parking.

After continuous attempts on finding a new job, Professor Chua See Kiat has no choice but to resort into cab driving. Ah Tau volunteers to help him and became his first passenger. Soon, Ah Tau was then fined again for another illegal parking.

Whilst Professor Chua is picking up his mother-in-law from the airport, he decides to use the taxi to go back home. Coincidentally the taxi driver is Ah Tau who brought his son, Jiajia, along. On the way, Ah Tau nags about Professor Chua's new career. Annoyed, Professor Chua shouts at him to shut up unwilling to allow his wife and his mother-in-law to know about his new career. This deteriorates Ah Tau and Professor Chua's friendship.

Professor Chua encounters some hard time whilst being a cab driver. Once his passenger is a scientist working in his former lab. After dropping him, he encounters his former colleagues. Reluctant to let them know about his new job, he enters another taxi and has his own taxi gets clamped. He soon encounters some party-goers as being his passengers when they soon refuse to pay their taxi fees and steals his phone. Furious, he chases off his passengers and ended up getting more troubles with gangsters. Ah Tau helpes him by recording the scene and gets himself punched by the gangsters. The gangsters are then caught and Professor Chua gives Ah Tau a mobile phone to thank him. However he is yet to face his wife who is crying. He then explains the situation to her as she promises not to tell anyone about his new job.

Despite having his job retrenched, Chua's son realizes about it as Chua picks him and his girlfriend up as one of their passengers. Soon the family has a brief scuffle and his son decides not to talk to him. Ah Tau has a similar situation for showing Jiajia edited pictures of his long lost mother when Jiajia realizes that Ah Tau and Regina had both edited it. This made Jiajia not to talk to his father. The two share their grievances and decide to help each other in the future. The next day, Chua realizes that his mother-in-law leaves the house unattended. This allow him to understand the 'taxi culture'. Ah Tau aske all taxi drivers to find her while Chua gives descriptions of her. In the end, they get to find her. Chua also helps Ah Tau by developing his son's broken English and tries to find a suitable school for him.

While Ah Tau sets a date with Regina, he is caught by a policeman (Chua En Lai) who gives a long, memorized 'speech' for doing an illegal U-turn). His taxi runs out of fuel and he is forced to take another taxi before being caught by the same policeman as he repeats the same 'speech'. Regina feels that Ah Tau isn't worth the wait and stomps her off on the streets, leading into a car accident. While she is in hospital, she finds out that her eyesight is blurred and she is unable to fulfill her dream to be a fashion designer. This makes her to almost attempt suicide on the hospital's roof. Chua explains the situation Regina is in to Ah Tau, who is in the middle of his son's performance. While he is on his way, Chua explains to Regina about his story on being a cab driver, which then calms her down and loses her thoughts on committing suicide. It is recorded as his son watches it live.

Few years later, Chua's son begins idolizing his father again. While Chua regains his job as a professor, he still wants to stick into taxi driving. Regina became a DJ as she falls in love with Ah Tau. The film ends with Chua and Ah Tau driving off the roads.

Cast

• Mark Lee as Lee Ah Tau, a veteran "Ah Beng" taxi driver
• Gurmit Singh as Professor Chua See Kiat,^[9] a retrenched microbiologist^[10]
• Royston Ong as Jonah Chua, Chua See Kiat's son^[10]
• Jazreel Low as Chua See Kiat's wife.^[11] Director Kelvin Sng stated that he chose her for the role as:

There is something about her that is very charming and elegant, which was what I wanted for the role^[12]

• Lai Meng as Chua See Kiat's grandmother
• Chua Jin Sen as Lee Jia Jia, Lee Ah Tau's son.^[13] It is his film debut.^[14] Sng said of him:

He is so popular on YouTube because he is such a natural, so we made use of this quality, put him together with Mark [Lee], and we think it worked very well.^[15]

• Chua En Lai as a policeman
• Gan Mei Yan as Lee Ah Tau's tenant, Regina.^[16]

Production

Development

Inspiration was largely drawn from real life blogger Cai Mingjie's personal recounts in his 2010 best selling work, Diary of a Taxi Driver: True Stories From Singapore's Most Educated Cabdriver.^[7][17] Boris Boo, Lee Chee Tian and Violet Lai served as screenwriters. Boo, Rebecca Leow, Chan and Sng were credited with writing the story. Chua Jin Sen (better known as Dr Jia Jia)'s involvement in the project kindled public interest. His participation in the film was first mentioned by his mother in June 2012, who told Yahoo! Singapore:

We decided to allow Jiajia to participate in this movie because they were willing to accommodate his schoolwork schedule and they were also very sincere in their approach.^[18]

She also gave some details about his role, but a confidentiality agreement prevented her from stating more at that time.^[18] Greater details about the film were disclosed at a July 2012 press conference, where director Kelvin Sng said [relating to Chua's role]:

We've scripted his role according to his personality and what viewers are already familiar with from his skits on YouTube... He will be sprouting [sic] a lot of Singlish, that's for sure^[19]

Taxi! Taxi! is the first on-screen pairing of Gurmit Singh and Mark Lee since their 2001 collaboration, One Leg Kicking.^[21][22] Singh attributed this to the "lack of suitable scripts".^[23] It is Singh's first feature-length film since Phua Chu Kang The Movie (2010).^[10] Taxi! Taxi! also marks the comeback of former actress Jazreel Low.^[24]

Financing and filming

Financers for Taxi! Taxi! included SIMF Management, Galaxy Entertainment, sglanded.net, Widescreen Media, RAM Entertainment and PMP Entertainment. With a budget of S$1 million,^[1] production commenced on July 12, 2012.^[14] Actual filming begun on July 16, 2012.^[19] A particular scene required Chua to be shot from various angles, resulting in many takes. This reportedly made Chua feel frustrated. His mother said of the scenario:

Jia Jia [a reference to Chua's online handle] did not get why he had to re-do the scenes so many times. He thought it was all his fault and started getting very frustrated, even though I could tell that he was really trying as hard as he could. It was very painful for a mother to watch.^[14]

Reception

Box office

Commercially released in Singaporean cinemas on January 3, 2013,^[7] Taxi! Taxi! grossed S$592,000 in its opening weekend.^[25] In total it took in $1.45 million, making it the second-highest grossing Singaporean film of 2013, after Ah Boys to Men 2.^[2]

Critical response

Film magazine F***'s Raphael Lim dubbed the film as "run of the mill", giving it only 2 out of 5 stars.^[26] Writing for my paper was Boon Chan, who gave the film a rating of 2.5. He wrote that "their [Lee and Singh's] much-vaunted chemistry has been overhyped."^[16]

Awards and nominations

Taxi! Taxi! was chosen as Singapore's first official entry for the 1st Asean International Film Festival and Awards (Abbreviation: AIFFA) 2013, to be held in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, from March 28–30, 2013.^[27]

References