Singapore director Glenn Chan belongs, he says, to an “in-between generation”. On one hand, he is a card-carrying member of the “old school way of doing things”. On the other, he is firmly attached to a new world. Much like Oak3 Films’ new eight-episode drama series, "Titoudao: Dawn Of A New Stage", which premiered across Mediacorp platforms this month.

Written by Goh Boon Tek, whose mother inspired the series, "Titoudao: Dawn Of A New Stage" is woven around the theme of conflicting impulses – to stay as we are or move on to new lives. 

“That resonates with me,” Chan said as the new series premiered to a Singapore theatre full of die-hard fans of the 2020 original "Titoudao", which become the most-watched English-language series in the Mediacorp’s history. 

“Singapore is progressing so fast,” Chan says. “We could be losing the dialects that give us flavour and identity. We need to remember our roots... to know where we came from,” he adds.

Chan directed the first four episodes of the sequel, which he describes as “a little lighter than the first season”.

The new season, set from 1969 to the late 1970s, returns Singapore actress Koe Yeet as Chinese opera (wayang) star Ah Chiam, who has been banished by her troupe and is now lost and searching for her place in the world.

Chan’s main concern was capturing the “same magic as we had in season one... the world, the colour, the costumes, the tradition”. 

Challenges for season two were led by the expanded backdrop, introducing bangsawan (Malay theatre & early Singapore cinema) for the first time, and absorbing new cast members into a well-loved environment. New cast members include Chen Liping in her first English-language drama role. 

Chan’s focus on authenticity is sharpened by awareness that he’s not a wayang expert. “For both seasons, the wayang scenes were really tough,” he says. For one, he had to find the sweet spot between showing enough to do wayang justice but not overload new viewers with lengthy, indulgent, shots. “It’s a bit of a shame that we can’t showcase as much but I can understand why.”

Filming in Singapore, where much of the old world atmosphere has given way to shiny modernism, presented physical challenges. “We don’t have a lot of the old-world look here anymore,” Chan says. The result was a narrower scope. “We couldn’t go too wide, so we tried to make up for that in performance,” Chan says. 

For all the challenges of living up to expectations, Chan was undaunted about returning to the story for a second season. “I didn’t know how big season one was going in. I wasn’t privy to how much people liked the show. I went in trying to achieve the same magic.”

Chan describes his current project with Viddsee/Mediacorp as a “multi-dimensional youth show” where the protagonist learns that the world doesn’t revolve around her. Later this year, he’s on to a period project set in the 1930s. “I like to do shows that bring you to a different world and take a break from reality for a while”.

Published in ContentAsia's eNewsletter 20 March - 2 April 2023 issue