The Medium | |
---|---|
Directed by | Arthur Smith |
Written by | Margaret Chan Rani Moorthy |
Produced by | Errol Pang Derrol Stepenny Productions |
Starring | Jamie Marshall Margaret Chan Dore Kraus Zhu Houren |
Release date |
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Languages | English Chinese Malay |
Budget | S$1,840,000 |
Box office | S$130,000 [1] |
The Medium (also known as Medium Rare) is Singapore's first full-length English language film. It was released in local cinemas in late 1991 and produced by Singaporean Errol Pang. It was initially supposed to be directed by a Singaporean, Tony Yeow, then by an American, Stan Barret, and finally by Arthur Smith, who was British. The Medium was initially seen as a revival of the local film industry. Starring Brenda Bakke, Margaret Chan and Dore Kraus. Zhu Houren also cameos as a coffeeshop owner whose wife ends up getting cheated by the main antagonist.
The Medium is loosely based on the Toa Payoh ritual murders of 1981, and its perpetrator, Adrian Lim, with a supernatural twist to the ending. Lim murdered two children and was sentenced to death in 1988. However, in the movie ending, the main character based on Adrian Lim escaped from the prison and ran into an incoming truck where Satan catches him and subjects him to eternal torture. This was said to be added to reassure the audience that crime does not pay.
The film cost S$1.84 million to produce with Pang financing S$1.2 million on his own. [2]
A Straits Times panel liked the storyline, but found the pace was slow, with a weak script with no scare factor. Local newspaper The New Paper found the film clichéd and unconvincing. [3]
The film did not break even and only earned S$130,000 in Singapore during its run. [1]
Despite having a flourishing Chinese and Malay film industry in the 1950s and 1960s, Singapore's film industry declined after independence in 1965. Film production increased in the 1990s, which saw the first locally produced feature-length films. There were a few films that featured Singaporean actors and were set in Singapore, including Saint Jack, They Call Her Cleopatra Wong and Crazy Rich Asians.
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The following lists significant events that happened during 1981 in Singapore.
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The Toa Payoh ritual murders took place in Singapore in 1981. On 25 January, the body of a nine-year-old girl was found at a block of public housing flats in the town of Toa Payoh, and two weeks later, the body of a ten-year-old boy was found nearby.
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The following lists events that happened during 2016 in the Republic of Singapore.
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Malaysians in Singapore refers to citizens of Malaysia or Singaporean citizens of Malaysian origin residing in Singapore. According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the community had a population of 1,132,924 in 2020, making them the world's largest Malaysian diaspora community. The community is also the largest foreign community in Singapore, constituting 44% of the country's foreign-born population and an additional 350,000 Malaysians cross the Johor–Singapore Causeway daily for work and school in the city-state.
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Life imprisonment is a legal penalty in Singapore. This sentence is applicable for more than forty offences under Singapore law, such as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempted murder, kidnapping by ransom, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, voluntarily causing grievous hurt with dangerous weapons, and trafficking of firearms, in addition to caning or a fine for certain offences that warrant life imprisonment.