Young Filmmaker Edmund Yeo's Powers Have Increased ... His Short Film KINGYO Is One To Watch For

I've sort of followed Malaysian Edmund Yeo's work and development as a filmmaker over the years. The first time I saw one of his works was his student film, Girl Disconnected, made two years ago, and I was left unimpressed ... but not unaffected. Although technically, the film left much to be desired, there was something about Yeo's vision that was strong enough to leave an impression, and he clearly was reaching for a certain level of poetry, mood and atmosphere. But his efforts were clearly hindered by limited budget, resources and manpower.

Now, fast-forward two years to the present, and Yeo is currently living in Tokyo and making more films there. His latest effort, Kingyo (Goldfish), is based on Nobel Laureate Yasunari Kawabata's 1924 short story, Canaries, and boy, has Yeo improved by leaps and bounds. That poetic mood that Yeo was reaching for two years ago is very strongly realised in this poignant 25-minute short film, which cleverly uses split-screens to tell its story of two former lovers who meet again to discover a shared guilt.

The film stars Rukino Fujisaki (who debuted in Hellavator) as an Akihabara maid who runs into her former professor and lover (played by performance artist Takao Kawaguchi, and this is his first screen performance). The professor's wife is played by Amane Kudo, a stage actress who has appeared in Babel.

If the work-in-progress cut which Yeo kindly unveiled to me is anything to go by, I think it's safe to say that Kingyo might be the breakthrough film for him. Already, Marc Saint-Cyr of Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow calls Kingyo "a rich and stunning film that chooses to approach emotionally complex themes from a strictly cinematic standpoint and emerges triumphant."

Kingyo will definitely be a worthy addition to Yeo's growing body of work - Chicken Rice Mystery (2008) went to the Dubai International Film Festival and the Naoussa International Film Festival, while this year's Love Suicides will be heading to the Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'Arte in Italy and the Paris Cinema International Film Festival. He's also known as the associate producer of Woo Ming Jin's award-winning The Elephant And The Sea, and is producer/editor for Woo's upcoming Woman On Fire Looks For Water.

Yeo is definitely among the three up-and-coming Malaysian filmmakers to watch for, the other two being Ho Widing (Respire, Summer Afternoon) and Yeo Joon Han (Adults Only, Sell Out!).

The work-in-progress cut of Kingyo will be shown in a test screening at the Fuyajo Cinema Festival, a small festival organised by eight film schools in Tokyo, to be held on June 5 at the Shinjuku Wald 9 multiplex. So those of you in Tokyo, head on down there if you want to catch the film.