Perth (2004)

Taxi Survivor

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Perth on DVD

Singapore-born filmmaker Djinn, 38, made his feature debut with the horror cheapie Return to Pontianak (2001), which was successful enough to allow him to direct the much more polished, more mature Perth, recently released on DVD by Tartan Video. It's an interesting and rare portrait of a middle-aged man looking to survive in an increasingly complicated world. Lim Kay-tong stars as Harry Lee, a self-proclaimed "simple man" living in Singapore, who dreams of retiring to Perth. When he loses his job as a security guard, he takes another, working for a band of shady thugs, driving a Vietnamese prostitute, Mai (Ivy Cheng), to her various gigs. Since Harry has irreversibly cut himself off from his wife and grown son, he begins to transfer his paternal feelings to Mai. Unfortunately, this does not sit well with his new bosses. To portray the film's violence, Djinn retreats to the distance, showing everything in full-frame, as if watching from behind a doorframe. Perth has been compared to Taxi Driver, and, if nothing else, it shares with that film a sense of psychological realism, fearlessness and perhaps a little history.

DVD Details: Tartan's DVD comes with a director commentary track, as well as with lead actor Lim. Other extras include deleted scenes, a set design featurette, and a trailer for this and other Tartan releases.

Starring: Lim Kay-Tong, Ivy Cheng, Liu Qiu-Lian, A. Panneeirchelvam, Stefanie Budiman, Sunny Pang, Victory Selvam, Catherine Tan
Written by: Djinn
Directed by: Djinn
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Language: English, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Hokkien, Malay with English subtitles
Running Time: 111 minutes
Date: January 18, 2007