That's the Way I Like It

Director: Glen Goei
Screenwriters: Glen Goei

Institute History

  • 1999 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Disco is making a comeback around the world, and this first feature from Glen Goei is a colorful and humorous homage to the original disco years. Set in Singapore in 1977, Forever Fever portrays the newly independent island as an exciting, wide-eyed country ready for global influences. Dock, a directionless supermarket stock boy, has just one goal in life: to buy an expensive motorcycle and cruise around town like Bruce Lee. After seeing the most popular movie ever to hit Singapore, a hilarious takeoff on Saturday Night Fever, he is bitten by the disco bug and undergoes a dramatic transformation. He is so enamored of the movie that he finds himself going to multiple screenings and conversing with Tony, the star of the film, who leaps offscreen to give Hock advice about life and relationships. Hock’s new obsession leads him to enter a disco dancing contest to win the
five-thousand-dollar cash prize so he can buy his motorcycle. He asks his childhood friend Mei to dance in the contest with him, but she has a different goal—to win Hock’s heart.
Goei does a terrific job of creating humorous characters who vividly illustrate Hock’s frustrations over living with conflicting Western and Asian cultural values. Among his traditional parents, genderly confused brother, little sister who is addicted to romance novels, and his aimless friends, Hock must find his own path in life. Forever Fever is a delightfully fun and uplifting movie which will have you singing all your old disco favorites.

Glen Goei, Director
After attending Cambridge
University in England, Glen Goei pursued an acting career. He played the lead opposite Anthony Hopkins in the London production of the Tony Award-winning play M. Butterfly, which earned him an Olivier Award anomination. He became artistic director of Britain’s foremost Asian theatre company, Mu-Lan, which won numerous awards and critical acclaim. Forever Fever is his first full-length feature film.

— Mary Kerr

Screening Details

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