Royston Tan
A Cut Above
By Eric Khoo
Posted Monday, October 4, 2004; 21:00 HKT
What Singaporean parents want most is that their children achieve Scholar status, an academic award that guarantees future wealth and fame in the city-state. Anything less—anything else—is a failure.
Royston Tan is no Scholar. He was an abysmal student—in elementary school, his teacher wondered aloud if he was retarded. His home life wasn't any easier: his father lost everything in bad investments when Tan was young, and his parents had to work in a hawker stall. Yet today, at just 28, Tan has become one of Singapore's top directors. He has collected more than 35 international and local awards for his short films, documentaries and his feature 15 (which I co-produced), an intense, graphic exploration of Singapore's unseen underbelly.
Tan's willingness to push the creative envelope has made him a hero to the city's independent artists. When censors wanted to gut 15, Tan stood firm—he knew his film depended on its honesty—even as the authorities finally forced more than 20 cuts. "To me, art that is not real is not art," he says. That attitude is something Tan says he learned from his parents' example, and it is evident in his work, in which integrity and humility are coupled with an innate sympathy for those marginalized by society. Tan may be no Scholar, but he's giving Singaporeans a lesson in art—and life.
ERIC KHOO is the director of the award-winning film 12 Storeys
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