Familiarity through proximity
On the Taiwan side, Taiwanese director Ko Chen-nien and Singaporean director Doreen Yap were at the helm, while in Singapore Taiwan’s Tzeng Pei-shan and Singapore’s Martin Chan led the way. These partnerships each worked with local crews, a big shift from the usual practice, which sees directors bring their own crews when shooting abroad.
The four teams shot in four different locations across the two countries, and between that and the separate storylines, preparations for the production required substantial discussion between the Taiwanese and Singaporean sides. The way of working and the shooting specifications had to be negotiated between the two, and they also had to work to seamlessly combine the cultural characteristics of both sides into the show. While both sides may speak Mandarin, cultural differences nonetheless make themselves apparent even in how each side talks. Singaporeans, for example, are much more used to throwing in words in English or in other varieties of Chinese, and sometimes the English words are cut down to just a syllable or two when used as adjectives. Elvin Ng gives an example, noting that when a Singaporean says “Don’t be so ‘emo,’” a Taiwanese person might have trouble cottoning on to the fact that “emo” is short for “emotional.”
Singaporean movies have also often featured the locals mixing Chinese and English in their speech, as well as parts of speech not used as often in Taiwanese Mandarin, creating a distinctive “Singlish” that has come to be one of the lasting impressions of Singaporeans among Taiwanese. Wang had hoped to make a lot of use of Singlish in the dialog of the Singaporean actors, but as the cooperation developed, she came to understand that Singaporean film and television are now required to use “standard” Mandarin, with no mixing of languages. Given that, the directors would often shoot two versions of scenes, each using different dialogue.
The four crews traversed the length and breadth of Taiwan and Singapore in search of optimal dramatic effect.