https://sg.style.yahoo.com/no-surprise-ah-boys-men-065834496.html
When Singapore-Hong Kong actress Apple Chan was revealed to be the female lead of Ah Boys to Men 4, the Internet exploded with comments ranging from the contentious to the derogatory.
Having an attractive female soldier in the role of a military commander almost immediately triggered the sexists, the chauvinists and the ignorant who lurked on social media with their bigotry.
Now that I’ve actually watched Ah Boys to Men 4, I’m convinced that some of that Internet bile rubbed off on director Jack Neo and whoever else scripted the film.
The film is not just an insult to Singapore-made films – it is a sexist, childish mess that lurches incoherently from one plot point to another. Spoilers below, though I hope you read on so you decide to skip the film altogether.
Ah Boys to Men 4 sees the characters from the previous three Ah Boys to Men films serving their high-key In-Camp Training (ICT) in an armoured reservist unit. It’s this platoon’s fourth ICT and the soldiers are restless, complacent and rebellious.
They accidentally injure their commander after a training snafu, and are openly derisive towards their new commander, LTA Zhang Xinyi, played by the aforementioned Chan.
Apple Chan can beat an insubordinate soldier into submission, but she still can't save Ah Boys to Men 4 from becoming a trainwreck.
Much like the actress did in real life, LTA Zhang has to endure sexist remarks from the men around her. She plays it cool at first, but after I P Man (Noel Yap) challenges her to a fight, she follows through and actually wallops him in a MMA gym when they are both off duty.
Never mind that the officer showed her toughness. It begs the question: is a commander who has to physically beat his or her charges to earn their respect a worthy one?
Maybe it looks cool, sexy even, to see an attractive woman deal some physical punishment to a guy, but the truth of the matter is military commanders do not get a free pass when it comes to assault on their men. Even outside of camp.
This scene is just one of many in the movie that simply stun and befuddle. Throughout the screening, I constantly asked myself how a bunch of males who are almost 30 could act exactly like the impulsive and immature recruits that they were in the first Ah Boys to Men film from five years ago.
It’s not just the infantile acting that is appalling. The writers seem to be stuck in the ‘90s, back when Singaporeans would still lap up Jack Neo’s brand of slapstick humour.
Valuable screen time is wasted on jokes that go nowhere, such as I P Man’s constant changing of his hair colour and inopportune farts from Aloysius (Maxi Lim). “Lobang King” (Wang Wei Liang) even has to break the fourth wall and remind (or perhaps implore) the audience that it is okay to laugh at a joke that just happened.
I appreciated the hint. There was only one problem – I didn’t find the joke the least bit funny.
Oddly, the characters also persistently reference running jokes from the previous Ah Boys to Men instalments even though this movie is obviously not in continuity.
A major part of the plot concerns LTA Zhang’s unorthodox way of disciplining her charges. Instead of a fine or confinement, she instructs delinquents to write 2,500 lines promising to repent for their offence.
The soldiers protest at the childishness of the punishment. LTA Zhang retorts that they deserve such a punishment since they behaved like children.
This is the crux of Ah Boys to Men 4’s failure.
Three sequels later, the boys have yet to transform into grown men and continue to behave like teenagers.
In the first instalment, one of the recruits Ken Chow (Joshua Tan) constantly threw petulant tantrums during training, while his goody-two-shoes mate Aloysius sucked up to his commanders and lost the trust of his platoon mates. In one preposterous scene, the soldiers in-training even threw excrement at their enemies.
