Wonder Boy

Wonder Boy (2017)

Its time to play your own music.

Directed by the Singaporean composer Dick Lee himself, this biopic of his youth, covers three years of his life, from his early years as a teenage singer-songwriter up to the release of his debut album in 1947.

Date of release
2017-08-03
Runtime
1h 36m
Genres
Music
Director
Dick Lee

Casting

Interesting facts

Wonder Boy is a 2017 Singaporean coming-of-age musical film directed by Dick Lee in his directorial debut, and co-directed by Daniel Yam. An autobiographical film, it stars Benjamin Kheng as a younger version of Lee.

Production

Lee, who decided to venture into film-making, wanted to make a film inspired by his experiences as a budding singer-songwriter and student at St. Joseph's Institution from 1972 to 1974. According to an interview during the press conference for Wonder Boy, Lee said that "not much is known about my teenage days because a lot of people only know me from (album) The Mad Chinaman onwards, which was in the late 80s", and that the film "will be a revela…

Benjamin Kheng, who is best known for being a member of the group The Sam Willows, was picked for the lead role. He still had to audition for the role as Lee wanted to be sure he was the perfect choice. Kheng had previously played Lee in TheatreWorks' 2012 musical National Broadway Company.

Most of the cast were announced during the press conference, although the role of Richard's father, which would be taken up by Gerald Chew, was not yet cast.

Daniel Yam was brought in as co-director to help Lee in the technical side of filming.

Filming started in October 2016, and took place in Singapore and Penang, Malaysia. During the press conference held on August 1, 2017, Lee admitted that he had a difficult time filming as he was painfully reminded of his rebellious teenage past.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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