15 – 2003 (DVD)

EX RENTAL – RENTAL STICKERS – SOME WEAR TO SLIP. COLOUR FADE ON SPINE

Brand new case. Disc surface in good condition with only faint marks.

A provocative film acted by real street kids, 15 exposes a gritty side of modern-day Singapore life that will blow your mind Growing up in the worlds most oppressive nanny state can be bad for your mental health, and 15 tells it like it is. 26-year-old Royston Tans social satire has given local censors their biggest ever headache by focusing on Singapores problem boys: the ones from broken homes, the ones who smuggle drugs, the dropouts, the ones who obsess on suicide and tend to die young. But what could have been a grungy social-realist tract is actually a dizzying collage of teenage experienceTan keeps scenes short and stylized, plasters the screen with captions and throws in everything from animation to fast rewinds to keep things cooking. Much of it is universal: gangs, video-games, bad role models, fake tattoos, crypto-gay bonding, piercings, self-pity, amateur rappingbut Tan doesnt shrink from the dark side: he looks at teen suicides with wicked black humour, confronts the reality of self-harm, admits that boys prostitute themselves for pocket moneyFrenetic, violent and funny; 15 is an electrifiying account of life on the streets.