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Holland V Mo Heart and Soul By Ronald Wan · Urbanwire
Theory 1: Caldecott Hill has traded the mole (the one that well-loved rich, uncouth contractor Phua Chu Kang wiggles in the ‘SARS-vivor rap’) for the Mo family, because the latter is one the typical HDB-flat-dwelling Singaporean can identify with. Theory 2: Having seen rival station Channel U hit ratings gold over and over with impossibly long-running Hong Kong drama series A Kindred Spirit, it decided it was time to get in on the act too. Like the Cha Shao family in A Kindred Spirit, the Mo family is in heartland food business, which is not so far-fetched given our national obsession with food. They run a nasi lemak [coconut rice with mostly fried condiments and chilli] stall in Holland Village. The matriarch is Wanwan (Chen Liping). Liping dons a fat suit and a frizzy wig, playing the eldest sister to great self-deprecating hilarity. She looks so large even Silm 10 pills can’t save her. Patricia Mok is Lingling, the 2nd sister in the family and a surprise in the show. Used to playing comical roles, she portrays a different sympathetic side. Lingling is quiet and soft, often patronised by her colleagues and horror of horrors, even her husband Dahua (Huang Yiliang). You can’t help but scream at her: “Patricia, shout back at them with your infamous loud mouth!” Twin sisters Jingjing (Jeannette Aw) and Yanyan (Cynthia Koh) are polar opposites. The naïve Jingjing has a low IQ and gets cheated by people she hardly knows. Cynthia Koh is a smart and pretty lass, with a penchant for sleeping long hours. Rounding up the Mo family are Rourou (Vivian Lai) and Yangyang (Pierre Png). No brownie points there if you noticed the siblings’ names are repeated syllables. The long script must have sapped all the creativity out of the writers. The show recounts the trials and tribulations of the Mo family and revolves around the survival of their stall. In Yang Xiong (Xie Shaoguang), who runs a neighbouring nasi lemak stall, they face a formidable rival. Xiong’s attempts to steal the Mo family’s recipe and sabotage their food echoes another local movie, Chicken Rice War. But you’re right, that’s not enough to drag out to 100 eps. So there’s some spite and a complicated common past. Wanwan faces off with Su Yueping (Xiang Yun). The pair is constantly at loggerheads, usually over Wanwan’s daughter, Siting (Jamie Yeo), who is now raised by Yueping. Huang Wenyong further complicates the issue as Jingcai, Wanwan’s former lover and father of Siting. Don’t worry about not being able to follow the various plots and sub-plots because they’re so simple and inter-locked that you can skip a few episodes and still manage to follow the story. I do have a bone to pick though: those crossover artistes need to brush up on their Mandarin. Looks like the poster boy of the recent Speak Simple English campaign, Pierre, should take the much older Speak Mandarin campaign more seriously for starters. It’s painfully funny to see Jamie and Pierre bite their words, as if they’re reciting a Chinese poem on helium. The show is filled with plenty of heartlanders’ soul, often jokes that your ah pek [elderly man] at the downstairs kopi tiam [coffee shop] can relate to. For example, Huang Yiliang delivers scathing misgivings at the favourite subject of all taxi drivers’ conversations – the Government and its ambiguous policies, taxes and what-have-yous. With much dramatic heart and soul, it is also filled with comical moments. Liping has the last laugh when she has a hilarious duel with the effeminate Shaoguang. She throws punches, back-flips and hurls Shaoguang into the air, which is without a doubt a highlight of the show. Never mess with the fat woman. Given the heavyweight cast they’ve put behind this, the drama has a lot of promise, so we’ll let conventional wisdom advise us, that it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. But you might have to wait 100 weeks for that to happen… Rating: |
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Has
Singapore’s scriptwriting finally come of age just in time for local
broadcasting’s 40th anniversary, or has our audience grown so attached
to local productions that a 100-episode drama series is being tried
out, as it is on Ch 8 with Holland V? 
