5 Dec – "Ah Beng The Movie: Three Wishes" star and MY FM deejay Jack Lim is well-known for his willingness to invest a great deal of money to create a great local production but this time the executive producer had vastly overspent, which resulted in a total expenditure of RM 4.6 million for his upcoming Chinese New Year film "Once Upon A Time", exceeding his original budget of RM 3 million. "Nobody can predict what will happen during filming and how much we are going to spend for the production and promotional events. We targeted for RM 3 million initially, but we were forced to give out another RM 1.6 million for roadshows and media advertising. In addition to RM 3 million for the whole production, the total became RM 4.6 million. It is definitely a new record for local movie production cost," Lim revealed. Lim, who kickstarted the first roadshow for "Once Upon A Time" with director Silver and some of the cast at Sunway Pyramid recently, was praised by Taiwanese filmmakers and production sound engineers for the impressive quality of his new adventure drama. "I just came back from Taiwan not long ago. We finished the sound mixing with the help from the Taiwanese sound engineering experts. Although the movie is a Cantonese-speaking piece and they didn't really understand the dialogue, they still felt impressed by the way we filmed it. They were extremely amazed with the palace set we built and the attractive costumes worn by the cast in the story," said Lim. He added, "The sound experts and I had spent hours every day mixing high quality of sound effects for the film. Eventually, we were managed to achieve a high score in the Dolby Surround test. I can assure you that the audience will definitely be entertained by an unforgettable sound experience while watching our film in the cinema."
Lim has not forgotten to give credit to his co-stars as well, but he admitted that he aimed to get international stars to join the familiar local faces for his films in the future. "If I want to invite foreign actors and actresses, I'll make sure they are the biggest stars in today's film industry. If you ask me to pick one of them now, I will go for Kwan Lun-mei ("GF*BF"), Zhou Xun ("Painted Skin") and Sean Lau Ching Wan ("The Great Magician"). Hopefully in three years, I am able to do that," he said. "Once Upon A Time" features an Emperor from the kingdom called "Ah-Wa-Lei-Wa-Lei-Har-Mo-Nei-Onn-Phat-Si-Fu-Lan" who is thrown into the year 2013 with his Imperial Servant named Yu Fa and little servant Eunuch Tok when a rebellion takes place in his era. The film is directed by Silver and stars Jack Lim himself, Gan Mei Yan, Vivian Tok and Jeff Chin. "Once Upon A Time" is expected to be released in February next year in conjunction with Chinese New Year.
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