Jack Neo’s Frogmen to be the last Ah Boys To Men movie?

SINGAPORE — Once again, the lads from Ah Boys To Men will troop into cinemas, this time in Ah Boys To Men 3: Frogmen, Jack Neo’s latest instalment in the popular box-office hit franchise. This third chapter, made at cost of S$2.5 million, sees the boys posted to the Naval Diving Unit (NDU), one of Singapore’s most demanding and fearsome combat units.

Joining them is a new face, Wesley Wong — the son of veteran Hong Kong actors Melvin Wong and Angie Chiu — who plays Hei Long, or The Black Dragon, an aggressive gang leader who prefers to talk with his fists instead of his mouth.

And demanding it was — for the cast, at least. Actors Joshua Tan (who plays rich kid Ken Chow), Tosh Zhang (who plays the instructor Alex Ong), Wang Weiliang (Lobang King) and Maxi Lim (Wayang King) went for three months of intensive training similar to that experienced by trainees at the Combat Diving Course (CDC).

“I told them if they didn’t meet the exacting standards of the naval divers after the training, they couldn’t be in the movie,” said Neo, at the press conference yesterday, which in keeping with the movie’s navy theme - and in conjunction with the SAF 50 event this weekend - was held onboard the RSS Endurance, a landing ship tank currently docked at the VivoCity Promenade.

The boys’ physiques were a key concern for Neo. “Two-pack, four-pack, cannot - must be six and above,” quipped the director about the cast’s physical attributes. He also acknowledged the tough training the real navy divers had to undergo. “These divers go home to their families and they seem so happy, because when they go through this tough training, their motto is, ‘if you can take it, you shouldn’t complain about it’. I think that’s why people don’t think their training is so tough, because they are always smiling.

“(The movie) is filled with encouraging and positive messages, humorous and heartfelt moments. I would like to use this movie to give the audiences a memorable Chinese New Year,” he added.

Neo worked closely with the Ministry of Defence and Republic of Singapore Navy to do research for the movie and he said that there were more stories that one could tell about the navy. “(But) we’ll have to look at tickets sales first! If we do very well, then we can go back the navy to convince them we can shoot more movies,” he laughed.

The first two films grossed a whopping S$14 million combined at the box office, but if anybody needs to guess at the box office success for this one, they can take a cue from the trailer.

“The online trailer for the third instalment of Ah Boys To Men has received more than 900,000 views,” added Melvin Ang, CEO of mm2 Asia Ltd. “This is very encouraging for us. It shows that audience interest and support for this iconic movie franchise is still great. The Singapore naval elements will enthral one and all.”

For the cast though, this could well be their last movie together, said Joshua Tan. “For the foreseeable future, because we have lined up individual projects already,” he explained, “It was very bittersweet for me,” he added. “It was bittersweet for all of us.”

Ah Boys To Men 3: Frogmen opens in cinemas on Feb 19, with sneak previews on Feb 18.