Boring

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The last time a local film actually garnered critical acclaim, Cleopatra Wong was still karate chopping up policemen in shorts. Hailing from 21th century Singapore, I was all eager to watch 15. Too eager, on hindsight, as I passed up Broken Flowers and Julie Delpy for it.Opening sequence with 3 leads playing bow-and arrows in a metaphorical wasteland (Nope! There's no desert in monsoon-ravaged Singapore), a sense of foreboding crept up inside me. A film which purports to capture street life grittiness but opens with some high arty farty concept, is suffering from a clash of ideologies, something akin to getting Jesus and God of Mercy tattooed on your back.So the movie meanders down this slippery path of pseudo high concept art. We find Ah-bengs, or 'street thugs' in colloquial Hokkien, not in the streets spilling blood, but hanging around in their not-so-spartan HDB flats musing about the vagaries of life and occasionally breaking into colourful song-and-dance. Sounds a lot like my life, thank you.Granted, there were a few great takes of self-mutilation and drug-smuggling, which was stomach churning even to the hardboiled. But the terrible pacing blunted the scenes and ruined the senses. It was with much gratitude that I survived the extreme tedium, thanks to my fingers on the FAST FORWARD button. Mind you, it was not just a casual fast forward, but a SUPER TURBO FAST FORWARD of 8x.15 would indeed be a smashing hit as a 15 min long feature. Royston Tan shouldn't have dragged 15 out from the relative comforts of short films to the hazards of full-lengths. A full-length film needs to be sustained by a story, a heartbeat. Witness how blood courses through the veins of Amores Perros, or Cidade de Deus. A concept alone, even if wrapped up in garish lighting and high contrast colours, is simply not enough.IMDb Rating: 4.7 (-1 for lack of Ah Lians in a movie about Ah Bengs. Oh! Ludicrious!)

15 gained its film notoriety locally for its content, about the lives and angst of teenage delinquents in Singapore. However, after watching this film, one might think a little deeper about the trials and tribulations that these teenagers face, from the angle that director Royston Tan presents.The opening credits was stylishly done, and this is very surprising actually, for a local film. The feel of the movie was like a series of short snippets of set pieces, be it gang fights, body piercing, the etching of a tattoo on one's body, body mutilations, the swallowing of condom filled Ecstasy pills, etc. And stringing it all together were manga inspired transitions done Japanese documentary style of huge words smacked across the screen.While these stylistic techniques drew attention to themselves, the main leads were also infamously rumoured to be in similar dire straits as the characters. The street wise teenagers actually looked sincere in their acting (or were they?) and it's a wonder how Royston managed to coax them into starring in his movie.The plot, as mentioned, consists of short stories which fell into 3 acts. The first, being the brotherhood between 2 friends who ponder the meaning of their aimless lives. They know that they are condemned in the eyes of society, and find solace in the company of themselves. The second act was a bit comical, as 2 friends helped an ex-enemy to look for a building to commit suicide in. And the last act continued with examining the lives and friendship between the same 2 friends.Sure, peppered throughout the dialogue are constant swearing, smoking, drug-taking, porn watching, lip piercing (which irked the audience), hokkien song singing, but there's a limit to how much these novelties can disguise a lack of focus in certain parts of the story, especially towards the end. I felt the strength of this film was in the first act, where you could actually feel the desperation and crying out for direction in life, and eventually the succumbing to the belief of what Fate has dealt them.Nonetheless, for its stark and pointed commentary, this is certainly a departure from the usual stories that one might associate teenagers with. It's gritty, dark, melancholic to the point of despair, this is a glimpse into the troubled lives of the local misguided youth.

This is one of my favourite movies. Can't wait 'til I can buy it. It is a chockingly beautiful movie, the colours and the camera angles and everything is perfect. It is so close, everytime the actors cut their wrists or try to press down a condom full of pills in their throat, it feels like they're doing it to me.Even the violence is beautiful. I don't mean kill bill-violence, but in some way the director makes everything seem so realistic but at the same time extraordinary. I don't know how else to describe it.This is true beauty. See it!

For the uninitiated, 15 tells the story of Singapore's lost youth. The original short film (at a duration of approximately 20 minutes) was excellent and mind blowing. A treat for all the senses. I don't think there was a single person who left the film festival screening unmoved.The feature length version basically continues where the short left off. And what a great feature it would've been had there been an actual story! The movie was wandering and meandering, meaningless at some points, and just plain boring at others. I shall always treasure the short film experience, and have already forgotten the feature length abomination.