Michelle and Moses to ham it up in new movie

Upcoming local movie Our Sister Mambo will boast a powerhouse cast of comic talents.

Scripted by Michael Chiang - his first movie screenplay since the popular Army Daze (1996) - the new film will star Moses Lim, Michelle Chong, Siti Khalijah Zainal and Judee Tan, among others.

Taking the director's seat is Taiwan-based Malaysian film-maker Ho Wi Ding, who won Best New Director at the Golden Horse Film Festival in 2010 for his light-hearted comedy Pinoy Sunday (2009).

Chiang says that he has already finished the first draft of the script for the romantic comedy, which centres on a father and his four unmarried daughters.

"I had a great time writing this script. It's going to be fun," says the 58-year-old, who is also known for writing plays such as Beauty Box (1984), Beauty World (1988) and High Class (2013).

In the film, 36-year-old Chong plays titular Mambo, the third daughter, who tries to get her sisters hitched. Tan, 31, plays the eldest daughter. Actresses playing the other daughters are not confirmed yet.

Lim, 63, plays their father, while Siti plays Chong's best friend.

Our Sister Mambo is the first big-screen production by Cathay Asian Films, a subsidiary of Cathay Organisation, in 15 years - since That One No Enough (2000) - and was commissioned to celebrate Cathay's 80th anniversary next year.

It is described as a tribute to Cathay's film classics of the 1950s and 60s, most notably Our Sister Hedy (1957), which was also about a middle-class family with four unmarried daughters.

Shooting for the film is scheduled for August or September in Singapore, and it will be released in July next year.

This article by The Straits Times was published in MyPaper, a free, bilingual newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

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