Actors Rui En and Lawrence Wong make directorial debuts in support of shelter dogs

There’s a well-known “never work with children and animals” adage in showbiz. Actors Rui En and Lawrence Wong, known for their illustrious careers in front of the camera, have boldly ignored it in their ventures as first-time directors.
Each directs a short film in Homebound, an anthology of five shorts about rescue dogs in Singapore, made in support of animal welfare group SOSD.
The other three short films are directed by Jason Lee (The Buddy), Tejas Ewing (Gaia), and, working together, Jeremy Kieran Ng and Zhang Minhua (Summerdaze).
Homebound will premiere at a ticketed charity screening on Oct 30, and will be available for viewing on SOSD’s website at a later date.
It is a star-studded project. Not only does it have veteran Daniel Yun (I Not Stupid, 881, The Maid) as its executive producer, it also has a cast of acting heavyweights including Yeo Yann Yann, Andie Chen, Ya Hui, Lin Meijao, Oon Shu An, Shabir and Remesh Panicker.
The idea originated with Yun at SOSD’s charity gala held last year, when SOSD president Siew Tuck Wah shared a moving story about his dog, Bacon. “I realised our Singapore Specials, our street dogs, are not top-of-mind, and may be misunderstood. Gathering filmmakers to shine a light on their stories is something I can do and, with the right directors, do well,” Yun said.
He went on to approach friends in the industry he thought would make an impact on the project. “I thought it would be very meaningful to have some artistes direct for the first time instead of just appearing in front of the camera,” he said, adding that he knew Wong and Rui En “would put in their all, as they do as artists”.
The five short films’ storylines are mostly inspired by true stories of SOSD’s rescue dogs. For instance, Bacon, the film directed by Rui En, tells Siew’s story of grief at the loss of his faithful companion.
Another short film, Echo, is about a dog named Echo who reunites a son (played by Shabir) with his estranged father (played by Panicker). And yet another is about a blind dog who helps a lost woman (played by Ya Hui) find her way (the canine actor is a resident of SOSD’s shelter named Stevie Wonder).
The name Homebound refers to “the whole idea of a stray or street dog… the end is always looking for home; looking for someone to love and a place to go back to. It’s about a place you can call home. Home is where stories begin and end,” Yun said.
Wong, who once had seven dogs and now has five cats, said he’s “not one of those actors who thinks of becoming a director”. But, “I surprisingly enjoyed the whole process. It was very inspiring and gave me the spark I needed to express myself creatively.” His short film, Esky, is about a dog whose caregiver struggles with exhaustion and mental health issues. The story is “largely based on my personal memories with one of my pets”, Wong told us.
He added: “One of the best things about being a director is being able to say, ‘No overtime!’”
Rui En told us that she’d give her directorial debut a six out of 10 score. “I hope to get a higher score eventually. I would absolutely direct again, yeah. I love the whole process of putting together something on screen. It’s very painstaking, but it’s a wonderful process,” she said.
As for working with dogs, “everyone knows I’m a cat lady”, she quipped, but “the Singapore Special (actor) in my film is actually more like a cat than a dog”. “He was super mellow. I think we kind of needed him to be a little bit more like a normal dog, but he was just, like, lying there; then he would fall asleep and we would have to wake him up!”
The doggie actor’s name is “Lengzai and he looks like Scooby Doo”. She mused: “Singapore Specials are very interesting because they’re quite skittish. When lights were being repositioned, he would get scared. That’s why I say he’s a little bit more like a cat… I think it was really nice that I got a dog who is a bit more catlike.”
She also has no regrets asking friend and fellow actor Chen to star in her film. “He’s an actor I personally respect a lot. I really love the work that he does.”
That said, taking the director’s chair for the first time “was very stressful. I felt like a fish out of water. It’s way out of my comfort zone. I think an occupational hazard as an actress is that you look at something and you’re like, ‘Well, I may have made a different choice there if I were the director’. We’re all such armchair critics, but when you actually have to do it… it was very humbling, it was uncomfortable, simply because I didn’t know which way was up. It was kind of scary. But, I’m very glad that I did it.”
In fact, it has been a year of stepping out of her comfort zone, said the actress, who also recently attended and graduated from bible school, something she said was “completely unexpected and very spontaneous and last minute”.
“And then this – I think it all kind of fits into this whole search for an identity that’s outside of my celebrity status. It’s been a couple of very turbulent years for me. There have been a lot of changes, career-wise and in my personal life. And I think that the good thing about going through that is that you get less afraid to step out of your comfort zone. When you start doing it, every experience builds up more and more, and your confidence goes higher.”