4:30 (2005)

Director:

Royston Tan

Writers:

Royston Tan (writer)
Liam Yeo (writer)

Release Date:

29 June 2006 (Singapore)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

"4:30" traces the relationship between Xiao Wu, an eleven year old Chinese Boy and his tenant Jung, a thirty-something Korean man...

Plot Keywords:

Korean | Tenant | Singapore | Drunkenness | Cell Phone

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Young-jun Kim	...	Jung
Xiao Li Yuan	...	Zhang, Xiao Wu

Runtime:

Japan:93 min | Argentina:95 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente)

Country:

Singapore

Language:

Korean | Mandarin | English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Singapore:NC-16 | Argentina:16 | Sweden:7 | UK:15 | Singapore:PG (re-rating)

Filming Locations:

Singapore

Company:

NHK

Set your alarm for 4:30 then keep hitting snooze.

I recently saw this at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival. This is the second feature length film from noted short film director and writer Roystan Tan and I think this may have worked better as a short film rather than being dragged out into a 90 minute film. Very little dialog here. It's a story about an 11 year old cough medicine abusing-latch key boy named Xiao Wu whose mother is on business in Bejing and he's left alone in the apartment with a suicidal tenant from Korea named Jung who is drinking and popping pills. The long stretched out scenes are about exciting as watching paint dry. Xiao Wu keeps a journal about Jung and sneaks into his room and spies on him every morning at 4:30. As a 25 minute short this may have peaked my interest and tied everything in more neatly and concisely and left me wanting for more but as a 90 minute feature it left me wanting to abuse cough syrup or kill myself. I'll be kind and give this a 4.5 out of 10.