Company Details
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ATRIX Building, 82 Lorong 23 Geylang,
#05-14 Singapore 388409 - +65 8787 6875
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Our Films
THE JADE
Official Film Poster
Creative Team
Director: Yeo Sze Liang
Co-produced by: Singapore–Malaysia teams with participation from training program talents
Genre: Love, suspense, thriller
Language: Mandarin, Baba Language
Approximate duration: 1hr to 1hr 30 min
Synopsis
The Jade is a cross-border social impact film that unfolds through dual timelines set in the early 20th century and the present day.
It tells the tragic story of a Nyonya woman caught between the constraints of an arranged marriage and her pursuit of emotional freedom.
Centered on themes of love, obsession, and time, the film explores how unresolved emotions echo across generations, reflecting the tension between individual will and societal expectations.
Approximately 80% of the narrative is set in the early 1900s within the Peranakan community, while the remaining portion takes place in a contemporary setting, allowing past emotions to resonate in the present.
Filmed on location in Malacca, Malaysia, with additional scenes shot in Singapore, the film utilises preserved heritage architecture to authentically recreate the cultural and historical landscape of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia.
Cultural Significance
The film reconstructs the historical settings of Singapore and Malacca, highlighting the richness of Peranakan culture and early Chinese diaspora society.
It offers a nuanced exploration of women’s roles within traditional structures, encouraging reflection on cultural heritage, gender dynamics, and social expectations.
Nyonya Art, Culture & Dialogue Design
Director's Statement
THE WIFE
Synopsis
A psychological thriller revealing that “the scariest thing at home is not ghosts, but unspoken violence.” It follows a woman trapped in domestic abuse, confronting fear,
silence, and ultimately her journey of self-empowerment.
Creative Team
Director: Yeo Sze Liang
Genre: Family, suspense, thriller
Language: Chinese, dialect
Approximate duration: within 1 hr to 1hr 30 min
Official Film Poster
Social Issues
Cycles of domestic abuse and silence, women’s dignity and empowerment, and cinema as a
medium for social education and dialogue.
Psychological Horror & Human Nature
The Wife is not a story about ghosts or supernatural forces. Instead, it explores the darker dimensions of human nature and the psychological consequences of trauma, repression, and emotional collapse.
The narrative unfolds through two interconnected storylines.
One follows a woman who leaves her homeland in pursuit of love, only to become trapped in a cycle of domestic abuse, emotional control, and silent suffering that gradually erodes her sense of self.
The other centres on a single mother struggling to survive life’s hardships. After her passing, her daughter is left alone to confront grief, abandonment, and the weight of reality. Standing at the edge of despair, she faces a defining choice between surrender and survival, forcing her to confront the truth about herself and her circumstances.
Although these journeys appear separate, they gradually converge, revealing a shared emotional core. Both stories examine what happens when individuals are pushed beyond their limits and can no longer avoid the truths they have buried within.
Through its characters and their choices under extreme circumstances, the film suggests that the most terrifying forces do not come from the outside world, but from unresolved guilt, fear, trauma, and emotional wounds.
Rather than explaining the supernatural, The Wife focuses on how people confront, or fail to confront, the consequences of their own actions and emotions.
When a person cannot face themselves, fear is born from within.
Ultimately, the film poses a disturbing question:
Is human nature itself the most terrifying force of all?
Singapore Urban & Overseas Chinese Rural Imagery
Cultural Memory & Spatial Preservation
The film is set across both urban Singapore and the rural landscapes of the Southern Malaysian coast, creating a visual contrast between modern city life and traditional overseas Chinese communities.
While part of the narrative unfolds within Singapore’s contemporary urban environment, key sequences are filmed in Kukup, Johor, Malaysia, a historic fishing village known for its wooden stilt houses and long-standing Chinese settlement culture.
These lived-in spaces embody generations of memory, heritage, and everyday experience. As traditional villages gradually disappear under the pressures of modernisation, the film serves as a visual record of a way of life that may no longer exist within the next one or two generations.
Through its cinematography and production design, the film preserves these disappearing cultural landscapes, capturing not only physical environments but also the emotional and historical connections embedded within them.
Beyond their narrative function, these locations stand as quiet witnesses to cultural transition, migration, and loss, reflecting the changing identity of overseas Chinese communities across Southeast Asia.
The film therefore becomes both a story and a form of cultural preservation, documenting spaces, memories, and traditions that continue to shape the collective heritage of the region.
Language & Cultural Realism
Multilingual Expression & Cultural Continuity
The film embraces the linguistic diversity of Southeast Asia, presenting language not merely as a tool of communication, but as an essential expression of culture, identity, and lived experience.
Within the Singapore segments, characters naturally move between English, Mandarin, Chinese dialects, and Malay, reflecting the multilingual realities of contemporary urban life and the cultural intersections that define the region.
In contrast, scenes set in Kukup, Johor preserve the speech patterns, dialects, and rhythms of traditional overseas Chinese rural communities, capturing forms of expression that are increasingly rare in modern society.
Through these contrasting environments, language becomes a living record of cultural memory, reflecting generational differences, migration histories, and evolving social identities.
The film treats linguistic authenticity as a core element of world-building, allowing audiences to experience the emotional texture of each community through its unique way of speaking and interacting.
By preserving both contemporary multilingual culture and traditional vernacular heritage, the film contributes to a broader documentation of Southeast Asia’s cultural diversity, ensuring that these voices remain visible for future generations.
Ultimately, language serves as a bridge between past and present, strengthening the film’s realism while deepening its exploration of identity, belonging, and cultural continuity.
Director's Statement
The Wife did not begin with ghosts, supernatural forces, or horror. It began with a question about human nature.
In reality, what often frightens us most is not the unknown, but the pain that exists within ordinary human relationships. Domestic abuse, emotional control, silence, avoidance, and unresolved trauma rarely emerge overnight. They develop gradually through patterns that become normalised, tolerated, or left unspoken.
Through this film, I seek to explore two seemingly separate yet deeply connected human experiences.
One follows a woman trapped within a cycle of violence, emotional dependence, and control, struggling to reclaim her sense of self.
The other follows a young woman confronted by loss, grief, and isolation, forced to decide whether she will continue living or surrender to despair.
Although these stories unfold along different paths, they ultimately lead to the same question:
What happens when a person can no longer face reality, and can no longer face themselves?
The Wife approaches horror not through supernatural explanations, but through psychological experience. The film moves between memory, perception, and emotional reality, drawing audiences into the inner worlds of its characters.
The fear within this story does not originate from external forces.
It emerges from guilt that remains unresolved, trauma that remains unhealed, and emotions that refuse to disappear.
At its core, this is not a film about horror.
It is a film about human beings.
It is about how people respond to suffering, how they carry emotional wounds across time, and whether they possess the courage to confront the truths they have spent years avoiding.
Ultimately, the film asks:
When confronted by trauma, loss, and choice, do we turn away from ourselves, or do we find the courage to face the truth and continue living?
UPCOMING PROJECTS
Period Film in Development
A large-scale historical film currently in development, exploring the depth of traditional culture through a modern cinematic lens. The project aims to bring timeless stories to life while reflecting on human emotions, identity, and the connection between past and present.
Official Film Poster
Creative Team
Director: Yeo Sze Liang
Co-produced by:
Gallery
Cross-Border Film Projects
A series of cross-border film initiatives are currently in development, reflecting JJFILM’s ongoing commitment to regional collaboration and cultural exchange. These projects aim to connect stories across different countries while expanding the reach of Asian storytelling to a wider audience.
Official Film Poster
Creative Team
Director: Yeo Sze Liang
Gallery
Every film is more than entertainment
it is a bridge between people and society.
