Ah Boys To Men cast returning for 4th instalment

SINGAPORE – Last week, a teaser poster for the latest in the box-office hit franchise Ah Boys To Men hit the Internet.

Revealed on the official Ah Boys To Men Facebook page, the accompnaying post said that Ah Boys To Men 4 would be “moving out soon”. That post has been shared over 16,000 times to date.

Director Jack Neo confirmed that the film, to be centred on reservist training and the Singapore Armed Forces’ Armoured Formation unit, is currently being scripted. Filming will start in June, with the movie slated for release at the end of the year.

“Every year on National Day, everyone gets excited when they see the Armour unit, like tanks and artillery ... I think it’s a good idea to showcase the Armour Unit and what it does,” Neo, 57, said in an interview with TODAY. He added that previous movies zoomed in on recruits and the Special Forces.

Neo, whose last movie, Ah Boys To Men 3: Frogmen (2015), grossed S$7.6 million at the box office, said that in order to follow the cast audiences have come to know, the coming movie would logically have to track them into their 20s and 30s.

“They are too old to play boys. There are a lot of storylines we can explore, using reservist as a theme,” he said.

Actors, including Joshua Tan, Tosh Zhang, Wang Weiliang and Maxi Lim, will be featured in the movie.

Neo will also be looking for a few fresh faces for new storylines in the movie. And actor Noah Yap, who was jailed for nine months in the Singapore Armed Forces detention barracks for cannabis consumption last year, will also return to star in the movie after completing his National Service.

“There are many men in reservist, and every year they receive different kinds of training. These people will be able to relate to the storylines in the movie,” Neo said. “I won’t necessarily write about my own experience, but about common experiences that everyone goes through.”

The original movie, released in 2012, grossed S$6.2 million at the box office. Its sequel, released a year later, took in S$7.9 million.