16 November 1999 | Life! The Straits Times

Lots of fights and gunfire in Singapore's first action movie, which started its cameras rolling here yesterday after the Hongkong leg

SINGAPORE'S first action movie, 2000 AD, started its cameras rolling here yesterday, after wrapping the Hongkong leg of filming last month.

Funded jointly by homegrown film company Raintree Pictures and Hongkong movie giant Media Asia Films, the action flick will see Heavenly King Aaron Kwok exchanging blows with TCS 5 hunk James Lye and romancing TCS 8's lovely Phyllis Quek.

The short and simple ceremony, held at Grand Copthorne Waterfront, marking the start of shooting began at noon and lasted less than 10 minutes.

Kwok, Lye and Quek joined Raintree CEO Daniel Yun and the crew members in the customary ceremony, in which they lit joss-sticks and made offerings -- including a roast pig -- to ask for an auspicious start, accident-free filming and, of course, prosperity at the box office.

The safety of all those involved in the millennium movie -- Raintree's third after Liang Po Po: The Movie and The Truth About Jane And Sam -- was of foremost importance, especially with the many scenes of actors exchanging blows and gunfire.

Kwok had been insured against any injury to his celestial body, but declined to reveal the amount.

The rest of the crew is covered under an umbrella insurance policy as well.

"Hopefully, I won't have to touch the insurance money," Kwok said, adding that he did not want any unfortunate incidents to occur on the set.

But he had already been injured twice, with both accidents happening during action sequences shot in Hongkong, and resulting from ill-timed elbows.

In the middle of last month, he was elbowed hard during an action sequence and nursed a bruised rib cage for two weeks.

Then, he received a blow on an eye, which burst the blood vessels. That injury took him another fortnight to recover. But he had no laments. Injuries, according to him, are part and parcel of the job of an actor.

Speaking briefly to the press yesterday, he showed no sign of the bloody red eye and was raring to go on shooting here till next month.

Media out to create news, says Kwok.

AFTER almost a decade in show business, rumours have become part and parcel of Hongkong mega-star Aaron Kwok's life.

Just as a recent scandal of his being caught in a sexy video has receded from the headlines, another rumour has surfaced in the Hongkong and Malaysian press -- that the Heavenly King is planning to retire.

The 34-year-old actor-singer laughs off the latest piece of tidbit about himself, saying: "It's all a mistake, a miscommunication."

Probably to the immense relief to his legions of female fans, he adds: "Those are just rumours. I don't wish to retire."

He said that it started when he was asked what he would like to do before he retired from showbiz and his words were twisted to imply that he was planning to retire.

Laughingly, he said to the handful of reporters present yesterday: "Don't be so caught up on this whole issue. The media is always like that, they need to create news."