Singapore-Born Filmmaker Weaves Dark Twist on Family Duty Into Short Film
Karen Idelson When writer-director Leon Cheo was crafting his Indeed Rising Voices short “The 25th Filial Exemplar,” he drew inspiration from old Hollywood films with terrifying depictions of the parent-child relationship, both classic (“Psycho”) and unintentionally camp (“Mommie Dearest”).But his initial creative spark came from something much closer to home: an article he read about a man in China who dressed up as his late sister to help ease his mother’s feelings of loss and grief. Cheo’s own parents live in his native Singapore, and he’s aware that as they grow older, he may have to help them navigate the health care system. It’s rare in Asian culture for parents to go into nursing homes or for people outside the family to provide assistance, so he knows that the burden of providing care could very well fall on him. “It’s an unpaid job that kind of lasts a lifetime,” says Cheo. Cheo amped up the psychological terror and turmoil in “The 25th Filial Exemplar,” infusing the story with the dark tone of a horror movie and adding sibling rivalry to the thematic mix. While it’s often the first-born male child who becomes the favorite in Asian cultures, in this film, it’s the daughter — though the “daughter” is actually the son dressed as his dead sister.