Alvin (second right) – A CAS Award in hand, an Oscar next?
HE had spent his childhood days around his neighbourhood of Kenyalang Park in Kuching.
During his teenage years, he had played guitar for the St Joseph’s Youth Choir and he was very much at home and had excelled in almost all the popular musical instruments – guitar, piano, what have you.
Born to John Wee Boon Teck (RIP) of Concreted Paper Products and Alice Sim, now a retired staff of Telekom Malaysia, Alvin Wee left Kuching to study music at the famous Berklee College of Music in 2013. He studied at Lodge School in Kuching in 2004 and the International College of Music Kuala Lumpur in 2006.
Today, he resides in Culver City, California, and he had just won the Cinema Audio Society (CAS) Award (the industry’s Oscar) as a sound mixer for Disney’s newly-Academy Awards nominated animated film ‘Encanto’.
By Monday morning in Malaysia, Alvin will know if he had also won for himself an Oscar.
The awards will be presented this Sunday, March 27 (US time) at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
Alvin is the latest in a very exclusive and select group of those who were born in Sarawak and have gone abroad and made it good – in Hollywood, on the silver screen, either in front of or behind the lights and the cameras.
Alvin’s impressive feats in film, as listed in the industry bible http://www.imdb.com (IMDB), have him down for 86 credits, having his earliest entry in 2014 for ‘The Way Home’. He was also involved in recent big hits like ‘Mulan’, ‘No Time to Die’, ‘After We Fell’, and ‘Top Gun – Maverick’ to be released this May.
Although totally immersed in his many projects in Los Angeles, Alvin tries to make it home to Kuching at least once a year to visit his mum and family.
“Kuching will forever be my home and I represent it hard wherever I go. All my fondest memories are in Kuching even now. Everything from Sarawak laksa to hanging out at the Kuching Waterfront, weekend hikes in Santubong or trips to Bako – for me, no other place compares and it’s my slice of heaven.”
A real home boy – bravo!
Someone who has not been home in a long time is Tsai Ming-Liang, probably the most well-known and widely-acclaimed filmmaker to ever originate from Kuching.
Ming-Liang (right) – touted as the most celebrated of all filmmakers from Kuching.
Tsai Ming-Liang has had 65 wins with 74 nominations since 1989 for his cinematic works as director, producer or writer. On IMDB, he is listed as having directed 43 films, written 28 and produced nine.
Born in Kuching on Oct 27, 1957, to a famous family of noodle makers (Ta Wan Kung belongs to his uncle and his family has four other popular stalls throughout the city), Ming-Liang left at a young age and graduated from the Drama and Cinema Department of the Chinese Cultural University of Taiwan.
His second film, ‘Vive L’Amour’ in 1994 had won the Golden Lion Best Picture at the Venice Film Festival; his idiosyncratic oeuvre has continued to enthral audiences, especially in Europe, ever since!
His trademarks include long and fixed shots, with very little dialogue and characters often have difficulty communicating their emotions and often experiment with their sexuality or their bodies. Most of his films are banned here in his homeland – even fewer were ever commercially released.
In 2003, The Guardian newspaper in the UK had named Tsai Ming-Liang at No 18 of the World’s 40 Best Directors, ‘living or dead’.
In the 2015 semi-autobiographical ‘Afternoon’ in which he spent two hours 17 minutes with his long-time collaborator Lee Kang-Shen, his on-screen alter ego and long-time life companion, he had reminisced about his Kuching days with his grandfather with great fondness of the innocent days of his youth and the lessons taught him by grandpa.
His current relationship with his own Tsai family here appears to be strained and complicated.
Ming-Liang’s cache of his life’s work spanning 33 years is considered a treasure trove among ‘cinephiles’ around the world and he would be hard to beat in the number of accolades that he has garnered from critics and film organisations globally.
In terms of box-office returns and international fame, it’s record breaking James Wan who wins – hands down! He is only the second director in history to have two films (not in the same franchise) to reach a billion dollars each at the box office – ‘Aquaman’ in 2018, and ‘Furious 7’ in 2015: the first director was James Cameron with ‘Titanic’ and ‘Avatar’ before him.
James Wan, now in film history books as a multi-billion dollar director.
James was born in Kuching on Feb 26, 1977 to Wan Ted Fong (R.I.P.) and Jane Soo Seh Eng – his father from St Thomas’ School and mother from St Mary’s across the MacDougall Road in the late 1960s.
James had left for Perth at a young age and later settled in Melbourne, studying at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
IMDB has listed James with 15 credits as a film director, 38 as a producer, and 20 as a writer.
His first breakthrough came in ‘Saw’ in 2004, and he was involved in the next six sequels, with the last being ‘Saw 3D’ in 2010.
James’ niche is in horror films, which he thinks has not been given the respect it should have.
“We think craft is important, and the irony has always been that horror may be disregarded by critics, but often, they are the best-made movies you’re going to find in terms of craft.
“You can’t scare people if they see the seams.”
Then again, he goes on to say that he has always been one of ‘those kids who would hide behind the sofa at the most gruesome or scary scenes’.
“Not many people realise this, but I’m a really squeamish guy. When I watch other horror films that are really over-the-top with blood and guts, I cannot watch it!
“However, I’m a big David Lynch fan, he’s a big influence on ‘Saw’; another director I truly admire is an Italian, Dario Argento – these two guys have a big impact on me.”
Amazing to think those words coming from a director/writer/producer whose ‘Saw’ movies were banned in many parts of the world, or were heavily censored for their violence, blood and gore!
James has been back to Kuching whenever he could find some free time to visit his mother and family; besides which, his favourite bowls of ‘laksa’ and ‘kolo mee’ are here too, of course!
In front of the screen, and the cameras really love him – he has been mentioned as being on the shortlist for the next James Bond – is Henry Golding.
Henry Golding, seen here with his mother Margaret Likan, in Kuching.
Born in Betong Sarawak on Feb 5, 1987 to an Iban mother Margaret Likan, and a British father Clive Golding, Henry had left Malaysia when he was only eight years old.
He had dropped out of school at age 16 and spent two years in London as a hairdresser at a salon on Sloane Street.
Henry later returned, at age 21, to Kuala Lumpur. While in England, he landed his first television stint as a presenter on ‘The Travel Show’ for BBC in 2014.
In 2017, Henry had completed his ‘bejalai’ back in the Borneo jungle – the Iban rite of passage into manhood, which was documented for the Discovery Channel series ‘Surviving Borneo’.
His journey ended with a traditional hand-tapped tattoo on his right thigh – a fig tree that wraps around other trees and takes their form to become the tree itself!
On IMDB, Henry is credited with 13 entries in movies, and 41 appearances on television shows and programmes. He made his name with the lead role in 2018’s ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ with Michelle Yeoh, followed by ‘A Simple Favor’, ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘Snake Eyes’.
Later this year, he will be seen in ‘Persuasion’, then in 2023 in ‘The Tiger’s Apprentice’ and ‘Assassin Club’. On television, he’s the voice of Tsubaki in ‘Star Wars: Visions’.
He’s been kept very busy in the movies.
Finally, we have the rose among the thorns – Miss KK Moggie, daughter of the famous Moggie family – a child of former politician and chairman of Tenaga Nasional Malaysia, Tan Sri Datuk Amar Leo Moggie, and his New Zealander wife Elizabeth.
KK Moggie, whose has appeared in both ‘Anna and the King’ and ‘The Sleeping Dictionary’.
Brother David Moggie had, in 2005, brought famous celebrity Chef Anthony Bourdain to visit Sarawak to film his longhouse and then, had his first encounter with Sarawak Laksa – now a legendary story in food circles the world over.
KK (Catherine) was born in Kuching on May 26, 1977, and has been in 18 movies and on television features and series. She was featured in 1999’s production of ‘Anna and the King’, shot in Ipoh, and parts of Peninsular Malaysia on location, with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun Fatt; she was also in 2003’s ‘The Sleeping Dictionary’ filmed in Kuching, as a ‘BFF’ of Jessica Alba in her role as an Iban Eurasian maiden.
She attended Columbia University for MFA Acting Program in 2002 and the famous Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York in 2004.
KK has appeared in recent TV series ‘Bull’, ‘Inventing Anna’, ‘God Friended Me’, ‘Blue Bloods’ and ‘White Collar’. She also had roles in various episodes of popular hits, ‘The Good Wife’, ‘Gossip Girl’ and ‘Mercy’.
KK now resides in Brooklyn, New York.
All our five Sarawak-born talents now making good in their various fields in the movie industry have had one thing in common – their unique skills and ultimate destination in their lives had hinged on them, having made up their minds at some distant past to personally venture, travel and go abroad to pursue their own ambitions and to realize their dreams.
Certainly if they had stayed behind, they would not be where they are now.
Today, we must let their individual pursuits, adventures and their realisations inspire all of us, especially those who are at the crossroads of their lives, to take that leap of faith – to go seek out the unknown, elsewhere – as our country’s brain drain continues to gather momentum in a nation where hope for a brighter future is fast becoming a big question mark.
May God guide your decisions and your future paths, all of you who are making your own leaps now or anytime soon.
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