First Look: ‘Rule #1’1 min read

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Kelvin Tong has begun his work on his latest thriller entitled Rule #1, currently filming in Hong Kong. Budgeted at S$3.2 million and aiming for a March 2008 release, the movie stars local actress Fiona Xie alongside Hong Kong’s Shawn Yue and Ekin Cheng.

This supernatural thriller centres on the calls received by the police force. Each day, the force receives 185 phone calls: of these, 180 are about rapes, murders, robberies and kidnappings, but the other five begin with, “There’s something strange in my house…”. Rule Number One reveals what happens when the police take time to investigate what they had assumed were hoax calls for help.

Filmed entirely in Hong Kong, the film has a bevy of investors and producers behind it, including News Corp.’s Hong Kong-based offshoot Fortune Star, together with Singapore’s Scorpio East, Dream Entertainment and MediaCorp Raintree Pictures. The film was originally set to be financed by Fortune Star, Innoform Media and the Media Development Authority of Singapore, but changes of personnel and MDA’s withdrawal forced the change in backing.

Raintree Pictures CEO Daniel Yun said in local reports: “We have worked well with Kelvin Tong on The Maid and we are working with him on the sequel to The Maid. Rule #1 has a compelling premise and we hope that the various partners involved in this project will help make this movie another break-out for Kelvin and the Asian film industry.”