Perth is one of the latest releases from Tartan Asia Extreme and it comes all the way from Singapore. I checked this out just because it was a Tartan release and because a quote on the box said it was "Singapore's answer to Taxi Driver," and "The most violent film ever made in Singapore." This certainly gave me high expectations, expectations that were not met.
Perth is about a middle aged man who has found himself at a dead end. He was once a merchant marine but at this stage in his life is a lowly security guard by day and a taxi driver for prostitutes by night. He has high hopes of going immigrating to Perth to get away from the materialism of Singapore. Much like in Taxi Driver he meets a whore that he wants to free from sex slavery and that's where the film turns violent. Too bad this is at the 90 min. mark and the film is only 115 min. long. The film is slow going though nicely shot with dark unnatural lighting, and to be honest i didn't even notice it was shot in film until the middle of the movie.
The film is actually in English for the most part which is nice except that the subtitles are still necessary for the random points where the characters slip into their native tongue, which by the way is spoken more convincingly then in English. The actors are easy to understand with very little accent, but the problem is they can't act in English. The film may have been a bit more believable if they spoke their native language instead.
The film in general isn't very violent until the last few minutes, also like Taxi Driver. I've never seen any other Singaporean films before so I can't really judge it except by my own standards, and given that, this film ends up being OK. Not great, not terrible, but ok. It's a modest film that is competently directed but there just wasn't enough for me to grab onto, especially at nearly 2 hours long.
Gore - Mild
Nudity - none
Overall 6/10
Perth is about a middle aged man who has found himself at a dead end. He was once a merchant marine but at this stage in his life is a lowly security guard by day and a taxi driver for prostitutes by night. He has high hopes of going immigrating to Perth to get away from the materialism of Singapore. Much like in Taxi Driver he meets a whore that he wants to free from sex slavery and that's where the film turns violent. Too bad this is at the 90 min. mark and the film is only 115 min. long. The film is slow going though nicely shot with dark unnatural lighting, and to be honest i didn't even notice it was shot in film until the middle of the movie.
The film is actually in English for the most part which is nice except that the subtitles are still necessary for the random points where the characters slip into their native tongue, which by the way is spoken more convincingly then in English. The actors are easy to understand with very little accent, but the problem is they can't act in English. The film may have been a bit more believable if they spoke their native language instead.
The film in general isn't very violent until the last few minutes, also like Taxi Driver. I've never seen any other Singaporean films before so I can't really judge it except by my own standards, and given that, this film ends up being OK. Not great, not terrible, but ok. It's a modest film that is competently directed but there just wasn't enough for me to grab onto, especially at nearly 2 hours long.
Gore - Mild
Nudity - none
Overall 6/10
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