Sayang You Can Dance premieres in KL

Prior to Sayang You Can Dance (SYCD) premiere at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur last night, its movie director Bjarne Wong apologised that the audience would not have the benefit of subtitles until its release date on 12 March.

Being Chinese, I had no problems when certain parts of the conversation were spoken in Cantonese but was a little lost when the smattering of Sarawakian lingo came in. As Bjarne said, "It will be a good excuse to come back and support this local Malay movie."

Among the young cast is Indonesian actor Samuel Rizal, 28, who is said to be a new face to watch after the movie, Eiffel I'm in Love. Apparently, he is Bjarne's first choice for the lead male role, Remie, a poor mechanic who is very passionate about break dancing and wants to win this national break dance competition with his friends.

The audience, me included, loves his deep voice and muscles. According to the production notes, Samuel, an athletic and basketball player, had no formal training in dance like the character he plays.

He has to undergo intensive sessions with dance choreographer Danny Wong from Hong Kong, who, according to his profile fact sheet, has been the dancer for concerts of artistes such as Sally Yeh, who recently performed at the Arena of Stars in Genting Highlands.

Samuel confessed he had only two weeks of training under Danny who majored in hip hop, jazz and pop dancing.

Behind the dance theme is a story about love between Remie and Mia, played by the pint-sized Sharifah Amani, 22, as a rich girl who loves hip hop dancing. Their relationship receives objection from her father.

Sharifah looks like she wearing a wig in SYCD. It makes her look so fake. She admitted last night she cannot really dance. If you stay back after the movie when they are showing the credits and behind the scenes shots, you will get to see how the cast of SYCD are assisted by props. You don't realise that of course while you are watching the movie.

Akademi Fantasia 5 (AF5) artiste Dafi who plays Mia's cousin brother Danial, sang a song for us at the party at Red Box Plus, Pavilion KL after the movie premier. Also featured in SYCD from AF5 is Ebi Kornelis from Sabah who played Remie's best friend Robbie, who looks very macho in the movie.

You can catch actress-cum-model Carmen Soo, 31, cast as Angel doing pole dancing in SYCD. She admitted having problems carrying herself up while doing the pole dancing scene for the movie a year ago. Carmen disclosed last night that she is currently taking pole dancing classes.

She looked familiar. Running through the production notes and her profile this morning after watching the movie, I remembered her in the musical stage play, Rose, Rose I Love You, a tribute to the late Rose Chan.

SYCD production manager Dominique Chiu, who was cast as Mimi, did a remarkable job playing an effiminate guy. He gave credit to his acting coach, whom he calls endearingly as Kak Fati or Fatimah Abu Bakar, my ex-colleague in News Straits Times. How the years have flown by. Now her girls are grown up with Sharifah Amani, 23, recognised as an award winning actress and another emceeing last night for SYCD.

SYCD reminded me a lot about the movie, Diva, which featured a young cast as well and lots of singing and dance. Both movies try to elicit some tears from you but SYCD does it much more subtly. You really need a box of Kleenex with you with Diva, starring Ning Baizura as the heroine.

In SYCD, our supermodel Amber Chia makes a brief appearance. Someone remarked to me just the other day, she is featured everywhere and wondered if this is an aggressive public relations exercise mounted by a PR company.

I don't think so. Having interviewed her for a story on her new house, which appeared in the Malaysian's Women Weekly last September, the enterprising Amber revealed that she has to work very hard in order to maintain and furnish her new home.

The scripwriter for SYCD is Meor Shariman Meor Shafie, whose profile states that he is with The Malay Mail (MM) from November 1991 until now as journalist, entertainment editor and news editor.

A quick check with my MM source revealed that the paper's entertainment editor is now helmed by someone else, who used to be our ex-colleague from The News Straits Times Group years ago and has returned to journalism after her PR stint, which I don't think she did very well.

Among the platinum sponsors for SYCD which really got good mileage was Adidas whose bags and apparels were prominently featured throughout the movie. I was invited by Brand's for the movie premier but couldn't see any presence of its products in the show.

Its marketing executive Ellen Yap Ker Chin told me their company, Cerebos (M) Sdn Bhd, was approached only after the show for sponsorship since one of their brand ambassadors Dafi or Gaddafi Ismail Sabri, 21, had acted in SYCD.

After the party last nite, the guests were given each a two-bottle pack of Brand's Essence of Chicken to take home. Earlier at the party, Red Box Plus gave a new twist to Brand's Essence of Chicken by mixing it into a light drink comprising aloe vera and lychee.