SINGAPORE — When audiences flock to the theatres to watch Tay Ping Hui’s directorial debut Meeting The Giant next weekend, the first thing they will probably notice is that the movie is dubbed — with many of its main characters speaking Mainland Chinese-accented Mandarin.

But Tay explains that it is all in the name of realism.

“In our movie, we have a few Singaporeans who play basketball players from China,” Tay explained at a press conference held at Nanyang Polytechnic. “And no matter how good their acting is, their Mandarin will not sound authentic to Chinese audiences.”

He added: “So for it to sound realistic, I decided to dub all the players. We chose not to use Northern accents, which are more pronounced. We used Southern accents, which are more similar to what we speak here, so Singaporean audiences would feel more comfortable with the accents.”

Producer Zhu Houren added that Chinese and Singaporean voice actors were hired to dub the Chinese and Singaporean characters respectively, so that the Singapore-China production would sound natural to both audiences.

“Everyone knows that Singapore shows are dubbed before they reach Chinese audiences. And this movie will go to China. So if we don’t dub it, they won’t be able to accept it,” Zhu said.

Tay also said he was not worried about the fact that Meeting The Giant does not “look or sound like a typical Singaporean film”.

“People seem to think that Singaporean movies should include dialect, mock the government, contain many jokes or be slapstick. I am not saying all films are like that, but many are,” said Tay. “But we want to show that Singaporean films can have a completely different style. Zhu Hou Ren was worried that Singaporeans wouldn’t be able to accept the movie, after some people told him that it didn’t look or feel like a Singaporean movie. But we hope audiences here and overseas can see that Singaporean films can be different, and we hope audiences everywhere can understand the movie.”

Meeting The Giant opens in theatres on June 19.