How was it shooting Singapore's first car racing movie Oversteer? Director says 'everything that could go wrong went wrong'

Oversteer may be touted as Singapore's first car racing movie, but director Derrick Lui was all but cruising his way to the finish line when it came to making the film.

It took 10 years from Derrick — an avid car enthusiast himself — writing the story to it finally being shown in cinemas. It was also shot back between 2018 and 2019, but its release was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Derrick, 48, told AsiaOne in an interview before the press conference on Friday (Jan 26) that if "you have a lot of money, you can make a movie in three months".

"But if you don't have the money, then you have to knock on many doors and ask for collaborators. So that took a long, long time," he explained. "So when collaborators finally came along, the producer took another two, two-and-a-half years or so to get going.

"And then everything fell apart, and we had to get someone else in and then everything fell apart again. Collaborators came on board, then they left. We thought we hit some funding, then it fell apart."

Derrick also said he was unsure of the full production cost of the movie, but it was probably "0.1 per cent" of big-budget racing movies like the Fast & Furious series. He estimates it to be in the "low-six figures".

"I just pumped my savings into it and my bank account is almost empty now," he added.

Even after filming was completed in Malaysia, the Covid-19 pandemic posed difficulties when it came to editing Oversteer.

"Because my collaborators were in Bangkok and Myanmar, we couldn't really travel and couldn't finish the project," Derrick said. "We did online live editing but it was very difficult because the WiFi would hang and stuff."

It took Derrick over two years to visit Bangkok and "settle everything".

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"With this project, everything that could go wrong went wrong," he concluded.

During the press conference, Derrick also shared another shocking setback — he had a run-in with the Malaysian police on New Year's Eve, the one day the cast and crew got to take a break.

"The police said, 'We have to take your car away. We think that it is stolen'," he shared.

He went to the police station with them and was questioned for "the whole night" from 6pm to nearly midnight.

The police asked him what he was doing in the country and what proof he had that he was shooting a movie, so Derrick had to "make phone calls and show documents".

"They still refused to let me go. So at one point, I was so tired but we managed to get through to them, and they said, 'Okay, we finally believe you but now my boss needs to talk to you again'."

Derrick had to repeat his entire story.

When he finally left the police station, Derrick saw fireworks in the sky, marking the New Year.

"It was a vision!" Derrick said. "Then we saw a nice kampung food court, and we had really good food along with the fireworks."

'In the show, we made her look ugly'

Oversteer, inspired by a true story, follows aspiring car racer Wind (Aden Tan) whose passion for cars leads to a fallout between him and his family, including his dad (Zhang Yaodong) who is opposed to his dreams.

Yaodong, 46, was initially opposed to playing the dad of an adult son, especially five years ago when the movie was shot.

"I told Derrick, 'But I'm not that old, how about you consider another guy?'," Yaodong shared during our interview.

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But when Derrick explained the story to him, Yaodong felt it was touching and thought: "Okay, why not?"

"The backstory is that he was a racer himself, so he knows how difficult it is and what the challenges are, which is why he is dead against his son racing," Derrick added.

Grace Teo plays Yaodong's other child, and Derrick poked fun at the 32-year-old actress-stuntwoman during the interview.

"She's so good-looking now, right?" he suggested, to protests of, "What do you mean, 'now'?" from the actress.

"But in the show, we made her look ugly. Her character is a tomboy and when you look at her then compared to now, it's like, 'Wow, look at these muscles'."

Grace's love interest, played by local actor Hanrey Low, however, is a feminine character.

When AsiaOne suggested that it would balance the couple out, the cast could only laugh.

"That's the comedy element," Derrick said.

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Oversteer, supported by the Singapore Film Society, releases in GV VivoCity and GV Yishun on Jan 31 and runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It also stars Tian Long, Jannassa Neo and real-life Malaysian car racer and drifter Kazuto Soon.

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drimac@asiaone.com

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