''15'' is a 2003 Singaporean

coming-of-age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can be ...

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film about teenage gangsters in the Singapore suburbs. Directed by

Royston Tan Royston Tan (; born 5 October 1976) is a Singaporean filmmaker, director, screenwriter, producer and actor. Tan is a graduate from Temasek Polytechnic, where he studied Visual Communications. He first came into prominence through his short film ...

, the film is an expanded version of Tan's 2002 award-winning short film, also titled '' 15''. It is one of the few Singaporean films to feature brief full-frontal male nudity, together with the Singaporean-Thai film ''

Pleasure Factory ''Pleasure Factory'' (快乐工厂 ''Kuaile Gongchang'') is a 2007 Singaporean-Thai docudrama film set in Geylang, the red-light district of Singapore. Directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham, the film was selected for the Un Certain Regard competition a ...

'' and the Singaporean-Hong Kong film '' Bugis Street''.

Plot

The film stars three real-life juvenile gangsters, all aged 15, giving an accurate depiction of Chinese teenage gang-life in the

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

suburbs. The 2003 film features two more gangsters as characters as well as a fight sequence with more affluent English-educated Singapore youths. Rather than scripting the movie or employing professional actors, Tan attempted to capture the troubled lives of his characters in realistic fashion, apparently without much prior scripting.

Distribution

In Singapore, the film premiered during the 2003

Singapore International Film Festival The Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) (Chinese: 新加坡国际电影节) is the longest-running film festival in Singapore. Founded in 1987, the festival has a focus on showcasing international films and providing a global platform for ...

.IMDB: Release dates for ''15: The Movie'' (2003).
/ref> In 2003, it premiered in Canada during the

Montreal World Film Festival The Montreal World Film Festival (WFF; french: le Festival des Films du Monde) was one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF (although the Toronto Internat ...

, and in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

during the

London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and shor ...

. In 2004, it premiered in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

during the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

, and in Australia during the

Sydney Film Festival The Sydney Film Festival is an annual competitive film festival held in Sydney, Australia, usually over 12 days in June. A number of awards are given, the top one being the Sydney Film Prize. the festival's director is Nashen Moodley. Histo ...

. The film also saw its first US theatrical release in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

on 13 April 2005.. In Singapore, the film is distributed by Zhao Wei Films. In North America, it is distributed by Picture This! Entertainment.

Reception

Censorship

While the

Media Development Authority The Media Development Authority (abbreviation: MDA) was a statutory board of the Singapore Government, under the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI). History MDA was formed on 1 January 2003 by the merger of Singapore Broadcasting ...

(MDA) ruled that the film should be passed uncut under the then R(A) rating, the Singapore Police Force was concerned that fights could break out given the use of real gang names, locations and secret society chants in the movie, requesting cuts/edits to be made through the MDA for law and order reasons. Under pressure, Royston Tan ended up making reportedly 27 cuts to the film."Take a big breath, you'll survive."
''The Standard''. 27 July 2006. Opposition was also raised against the heavy use of

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in ...

in the film, which is discouraged by the Singapore government in favour of

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. These restrictions infuriated Tan, and later led him to create his satirical short film ''Cut''.

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from film critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

it has an approval rating of 50% based on 10 reviews. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

the film has a score of 47% based on 6 reviews. The film has been advertised outside of Singapore in gay publications, due to the heavy homoerotic tension between the characters. However, in an interview segment of the DVD '' Royston's Shorts'', a collection of Tan's short films, Tan affirms that the boys whose lives he portrayed do not identify as gay.

Awards

* FIPRESCI/NETPAC Award,

(2003)IMDB: Awards for ''15: The Movie (2003)''.
/ref> * Best Fiction, Tampere International Short Film Festival (2003) * Prize of the Youth Film Competition (Special Mention), Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (2003) * Grand Prix Asturias (nominated),

Gijón International Film Festival The Gijón International Film Festival ( ast, Festival Internacional de Cine de Xixón or ''FICXixón'') is an annual film festival held in Gijón, a city in northwest Spain. History The festival's origins date back to 1963. In the beginning i ...

(2003) * Best Director,

Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema The Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI, es, Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente) is an international festival of independent films organized each year in the month of April, in the city of ...

(2004)6th Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente: Winners.
/ref>

Notes

References

Reviews

* Bradshaw, Peter
Review.
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''. 4 February 2005. * Dawson, Tom
Review.

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...