By Yong Shu Hoong

Queenstown, 3.45pm

Here, in the middle of nowhere, two cinemas bond like old neighbours who never stop reminiscing over bygone days of glory. A time when this was still the centre of universe. With the departure of projectionists, Venus and Golden City have long been converted into churches (someone told me, in her country, it was the other way around). Not far from here, where blocks of flats, a food centre and a department store have disappeared, Prince William and his wife wave at the crowd in a newer estate, after watching peasantry perform tai chi and silat in 32 degrees centigrade.

Art of Fighting

Bruce Lee could have been the one who popularised the trend. So every martial arts proponent henceforth will get his shirt ripped to tatters in the final battle of a kung fu flick, so that he emerges the hero, tanned and bare-chested with a black sash around his slender waist. But why this homoerotic striptease? Woman warriors, regardless of skill level, suffer no such impropriety on the big screen – even though distressed damsels often get raped by wealthy lords and useless sons. Think now of a different continent, Amazonian women striding along a river, their skins glistening in the sun.

Goodbye, Mr Chips

He might pass off as a shy schoolteacher, but I would never ask. Not if he's mumbling gibberish to himself, barely audible beneath his breath, throughout the film and, worse, chomping on potato chips with startling precision. Both kinds of noise are so consistently delivered, without awareness, alternating seamlessly from one to the other before starting over, that it's easy to think of him as a sonic virtuoso providing accompaniment to Bjork's organic performance that I'd watched in Manchester months ago and, now, complementing the slow-burning atmosphere of Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive – until Ryan Gosling loses it and finally snaps.

Role Play

"My name is Jack," he greeted, during a stop at the media preview of the Titanic exhibition at the museum. The reference was probably linked to Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack Dawson character in the Hollywood blockbuster about the RMS Titanic's ill-fated maiden voyage. I later learned that he was really a polytechnic intern, though he wouldn't let on the fact during the journalists' tour, as he had been instructed to stay in character – retro cap and suspenders intact. That was, until the iPhone, tucked beneath a pillow on his bed in this recreated third-class cabin, started to vibrate with flashing light.

The Fall

A middle-aged man lying face down on the floor, disrupting the efficient flow of the queue before the immigration counters, was obviously the inciting incident. Soon, human traffic was channelled around him in creative zigzags, like plotlines diverging in masterful ways. Faces gazed, discreetly, half-expecting a voice-over or subtitles for explanation. Then more characters entered the scene: security officers, a medical attendant. So could the climatic twist be the man feigning a theatrical fainting spell to divert attention from someone else? Instead of a proper resolution, I was left with an art-house finish, open-ended, as passport control beckoned with a wave.

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