In Wonderland, S’pore actors Mark Lee and Peter Yu play characters bonded by fatherhood

SINGAPORE – In the new film Wonderland, local actors Mark Lee and Peter Yu play two men living alone in small neighbouring HDB flats in 1980s Singapore.

Lee, 55, is familiar with residents of such one- and two-room rental units whom he met while volunteering with food distribution groups. He says that after chatting with them, he was struck by how rich and varied these people’s lives were. Some were lonely and felt abandoned by their families, but many were happy, he notes.

He tells The Straits Times in a joint interview with Yu: “Some of them have worked hard all their lives raising a family. Now they are happy to rest. Some are couples. Some are singles because their partner may have died. So they now have their own lives – to go around to see their grandchildren if they want or to the coffee shop. Or stay home to watch television, YouTube or TikTok.”

In Wonderland, which opens in Singapore cinemas on Aug 8, he plays single dad Loke, who moves from his kampung home into one such small flat. Lee says he drew on his memories of the time when his family moved from a kampung in Choa Chu Kang to a flat in Boon Lay.

“I cried the first night,” he says. The shock of giving up the space he was used to was too much to bear.

In the film, Loke goes through the same painful transition, a change that is made more bearable after he meets his neighbour Tan (played by Yu), a church choir director.

The two men at first seem poles apart: One is an incense shop owner, the other a Christian. Loke can speak only Hokkien while Tan is more multilingual. When Loke runs into language difficulties, he seeks Tan’s help.

Both become friends and bond over the fact that they each have a daughter. Loke devotes himself to his university-age only child. In contrast, Tan has a more complicated relationship with his family and a past he prefers to bury.

Wonderland covers a time of change in Singapore when places like Wonderland Amusement Park in Kallang attracted visitors, families were still moving from villages to flats, and fathers were expected to carry their burdens in secret.

Loke’s daughter Eileen (Xenia Tan) knows that despite his gruff exterior, her father cares deeply for her.

Lee, who has three children aged 16, 12 and 10, says: “My father was like my character. They love you, but will never show it to you. They are fierce; they cannot talk to you in a nice way. They will give you what you ask for, but they will scold you first.”

Yu, 56, is a father to two boys aged 12 and eight. He also has a daughter, 24-year-old actress Eleanor Lee, with his former wife, Taiwan-born host Quan Yifeng.

He says things are “totally different now” when it comes to accepted parenting styles.

“My parents were similar to Mark’s. But today, we have to express ourselves through conversation. We have to be real, to be able to teach them,” says Yu.

Both actors believe the time is right for a dialect movie like Wonderland, which is almost entirely in Hokkien. Young people today are curious about these forms of languages, and Lee says he was interviewed by students from Raffles Institution, whose student interest group Raffles Dialects is aimed at those interested in learning how to communicate in Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hainanese and Hakka.

Yu says Wonderland’s Hokkien is nuanced, with each character’s speech patterns reflecting their age and background. For example, the cast includes Channel 8 veteran Zhang Wei, 81, who plays Ah Seng, a karung guni or rag-and-bone man, whose mode of speech differs from that of someone younger.

“We have artistes who all speak differently. Their style might come from the 1970s or 1980s – their accents are different.”