hey look

Hey look, it's KOEYEET In the movie ah long pte ltd. Owh, so that's why she cut of her hair. She use to have really pretty waistlong hair, ahhh, nevermind, it'll grow :D

Aiyoh, I very lazy to elaborate this la, but since I"m such a great person, I manage to dig up an awesome news from star newspaper of our friend. So....here it is! Enjoy

A Malaysian gal who has a special role in Jack Neo’s Ah Long Pte Ltd is set to make waves in the movie world.

LAST month, the world marvelled at Hong Kong’s maverick filmmaker Stephen Chow’s unorthodox move to cast a nine-year-old lass from China to play his son in his sci-fi comedy CJ7. It turned out to be an astute choice that saw little Xu Jiao earning widespread rave reviews for her convincing and moving performance.

Now, do you know that a Malaysian schoolgirl was nearly similarly cast to play a boy by Singapore’s renowned director Jack Neo for his newest flick Ah Long Pte Ltd?

Probably due to Chow’s success in his gender-bending experiment, Neo, who was in town last Tuesday to plug the movie which hits Malaysian cinemas this Wednesday, was burning to introduce his latest discovery, 16-year-old Selangor girl Koe Yeet who plays a role originally written for a boy in Ah Long.

Neo found Koe only after auditioning numerous young men for the role of a vengeful teenage boy for a pivotal scene he had written for the comedy, which revolves around a young woman (played by Fann Wong) whose well-meaning attempts to restructure and soften a triad’s money-lending business frustrate some of its members.

It wasn’t until the director was introduced to Koe at an audition that he found the candidate that fit his vision – a fresh face that looked innocent yet menacing – just a day before the scene was shot.

“We wanted Koe to cut her hair for the shoot. However, despite liking the role, she was unwilling to have her long hair snipped for only two scenes,” Neo revealed at a press conference at the JW Marriott Kuala Lumpur also attended by Koe and the other stars of Ah Long including Fann, Mark Lee and Richard Low from Singapore and Malaysians Daniel Tan, Jack Lim and K.K. Wong.

As Neo was adamant about having Koe onboard yet not lose sight of his original vision, he instead had Koe play a girl who ends up being as tough as a boy – and with a little less hair.
The filmmaker went to great lengths to make that happen.

“Sampson (Yuen, the producer) and I tried our best to persuade her to sacrifice some of her hair. We even went to her school to speak to her teacher and principal(Lee Kim Lai...LOL). I remember the day her hair was cut, for every snip of the scissors, a tear rolled down her cheek. But she was quite happy with the new look after,” Neo recalled with a grin.

“So this is our achievement. We spotted a talented young teen that we couldn’t find even after searching for a long time in Singapore. I think she has the potential to go all the way to the finalists’ list of the Golden Horse Awards(wow!),” he joyfully declared.

Said Koe: “At first I didn’t want to have my hair cut as I only had a few scenes. But Jack said it was a chance of a lifetime and Sampson even gave me a nice long-haired wig.

“I filmed for about a week. I remember shooting from 7pm one day until the next morning.” The movie, by the way, was mostly shot in the Klang Valley.

The Form Four student of Petaling Jaya's Catholic High School proved to be a natural in front of the camera and handled her dramatic scenes competently. “I had to splash red paint on Richard (who plays retired triad leader Chen Jun). That took some time and I had to splash and re-splash to get the right effect. In the end, some of the paint got into his eye and he had to be rushed to hospital!”

Remarkably, Koe also excels in her studies and in sports. Despite being involved in Ah Long last year, she went on to score 8As for her PMR (Penilaian Menengah Rendah).

“I’d like to get an Asian scholarship to study marketing overseas,” she said.

The actress is also very active in extra-curricular activities and represents Selangor in tennis and ping pong. In fact, before making her appearance at the mid-day press conference, Koe even played in the quarter-finals of the district tennis tournament and qualified for the semi-finals.

“I had to play or my partner and I would be disqualified. The organisers re-scheduled the game for me to play earlier at 9.30am.”

Koe, who started appearing in commercials and children’s fashion shows when she was just five years old, made her debut in the local Chinese TV series Mama De Xin (Mother’s Heart) two years ago.

“Acting is a lot of fun and I’d like to pursue that too,” said the high achiever who is currently seen in 8TV’s spooky drama Goodnight DJ, which airs on Sundays at 7.30pm.

“I play the ghost of a car crash victim but it is not scary and audiences won't find out the truth until the very end.”