Young & Fabulous is S’pore’s first cosplay-themed film

SINGAPORE — The play’s the thing in Young & Fabulous, Singapore’s first cosplay-themed movie directed by Taxi! Taxi!’s Kelvin Sng.

Young & Fabulous is a coming-of-age story of a group of teenage friends (played by Joshua Tan, Aloysius Pang, Jeffrey Xu and Malaysian YouTube star Joyce Chu) who are united by a shared love for cosplay. Gurmit Singh, Quan Yi Fong, Henry Thia and Jacelyn Tay play their parents and teachers.

With a production budget of S$1.2 million, Young & Fabulous is produced by Encore Films in collaboration with SIMF Management and Golden Village Pictures. Principal photography commences on April 15.

Pang stars as a friendless, introverted Secondary Four nerd whose secret cosplay hobby attracts the attention of the school’s ‘it’ girl (Chu) and the resident jock (Tan).

Meanwhile, Singh plays their Discipline Master, who manages to find a way to connect with them. The actor said he was looking forward to taking on a non-comedic role. It is also his first time playing a teacher. “I’m looking forward to it because I want to try more and more roles that are different from what I’ve been doing. Everybody’s still stuck with the image of Phua Chu Kang, so I want to do different roles,” Singh said at the press conference held today (April 1)

He added: “He’s a very straightforward guy. Very by the book, very fierce, no nonsense. So, I guess I’ll have to come to work every day feeling bad. Maybe I’ll go partying the night before, skip breakfast and come to work with a long face — maybe beat somebody up before I come on set, just for fun.”

Ah Boys To Men star Tan described his role in Young & Fabulous as being “completely different from Ken Chow”; the Ah Boys character comes from a rich family, whereas this one is the son of a rag and bone man (played by Thia), and therefore is “always thinking of ways to make money”.

Jeffrey Xu, in his film debut, plays a boldly expressive and experienced cosplayer. Xu revealed that although cosplay isn’t new to him — he dabbled in it back in school — being in a movie is. “It’s my first movie and I feel like a newbie. My palms are sweating.” What’s cause for more cold sweat is perhaps the fact that he’ll have to cross dress. “Me in a G-string? Even I wouldn’t want to watch that,” he laughed.

Quan is almost as much of a movie noob as Xu: Her last movie was Eric Khoo’s 12 Storeys back in 1997. “I told the director not to expect too much of me,” she quipped.

Director Sng revealed that he was formerly a teacher, so a coming-of-age story such as this is close to his heart. “Cosplay is just a theme for a story about students chasing their dreams, choosing the road less taken, friendship and kinship,” he said.

It’s a theme that means lots of action scenes for Pang, who recalled being into manga at a young age but admitted to not being crafty enough to make his own costumes. As the main protagonist — an otaku with an overactive imagination — he will have to act out plenty of dream sequences, rehearsals for which have already left him bruised. It’ll be worth it, though, because “he will look like a very cool manga character,” Sng said.