Interview With Actor-Producer Jonathan Cheong About Award-Winning Action Short Film Bullet For Vengeance

At the age of 26, local actor-producer-action director Jonathan Cheong not only owns a film company called Raging Fire Productions, he already has a couple of award-winning action short films under this belt. Jonathan played a conflicted hitman in his 2021 film “Deadlock”, and he was awarded Best Actor at the World Film Carnival Singapore (WFCS) for the role. “Deadlock” also won Outstanding Crime Film and Best Outstanding Director for Samuel Delitans Lee at WFCS, and was selected for seven international film festivals.

Fueled by his passion for action genre films and ardent admiration for veteran martial arts actor Donnie Yen, Jonathan consistently puts in time and effort to hone his craft. His latest Raging Fire Productions offering entitled “Bullet For Vengeance” is an action thriller about the personal feud between between a criminal and a police inspector over a shooting gone wrong. The short film written and directed by Raphael Lim, stars Jonathan Cheong, Gary Gan, Johanna Van, Agnes Goh and Kris Mavericko.

To date, “Bullet For Vengeance” has clinched an impressive total of 8 Awards, 8 Official Sections and 7 Special Mentions at the local and international film festival circuit. This includes Best Cinematography by Benny Tan at the World Film Carnival Singapore (WFCS), Best Supporting Actor awarded to Kris Mavericko and Best Supporting Actress to Agnes Goh at the Golden Reel International Film Festival (Massachusetts, USA).

Ahead of the official release of “Bullet For Vengeance” for the general international audience, Red Dot Diva grabbed hold of Jonathan Cheong to ask him some nosy questions:

Diva's Movie Review: Missing Is A Riveting And Twisty Screenlife Thriller

Sony Pictures' Missing is the next installment of their critically acclaimed 2018 screenlife film, Searching. In this film genre (also know as desktop films), the audience is led through a series of events which unfolds mostly in front of a computer screen or smartphone. Directed by Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick, and a screenplay by Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian (the creators of Searching), Missing is not a direct sequel to older film, but it does follow the same formula. To its benefit, Missing manages to supercede its predecessor with a tauter and twistier thriller, and a touching mother-daughter relationship.

In Searching, Daniel Kim (John Cho) is a frantic father looking desperately for his missing teenage daughter Margot (Michelle La) via her online activities. The situation is somewhat reversed in Missing, with June (Storm Reid), a Gen Z teenager trying to trace the whereabouts of her mother Grace (Nia Long).

The Marksman Is Standard Liam Neeson Fare, But Slower

Veteran star Liam Neeson has done a Hayao Miyakazi, that is, publicly announce that they plan to "retire", and then come back doing the thing they do best. Now in his late 60s, Neeson is back starring as a lead in an action-thriller called “THE MARKSMAN”. The movie opened at local theatres a few days ago on 25 February.

Living in his ranch at the Arizona-Mexico border, Vietnam war veteran Jim Hanson (Liam Neeson) is leading a lonely life together with his trusty pet dog. He has just lost his wife to cancer, and he is about to lose his property to the bank too. He passes by his days with melancholy, downing a regular bottle of whisky, and saving his livestock from coyotes - thanks to his skills as a marksman. From time to time, Hanson would notify the border patrol whenever he spots illegal immigrants pass by his land.

Experience "AUTUMN" the unusual 12-hour live instalment for HBO's Third Day series (3 Oct, 4:30 PM)

Unlike the islanders of Osea in HBO's psychological thriller THE THIRD DAY, there are no changing of seasons in equatorial Red Dot Island. Many of those who live here have not experienced autumn before, but now you would have an opportunity to do so.

Later on, at 4:30 PM (3 October, Saturday), there will be a special 12-hour theatrical event dubbed “AUTUMN”, where you can immerse yourself in the world of THE THIRD DAY'S Osea Island via a livestream on HBO Asia's Facebook page. The island exists in real life, by the way. So does the old Roman-built causeway that can only be navigated at low tide for approximately only 4 hours a day in every 12.

The cinematic broadcast features the show's cast including lead actors Jude Law, Katherine Waterston and Florence Welch. The audience will be able to watch events unfold on mysterious Osea Island in real time in one single day, in one single take. This sounds like such a unique, trippy experience that Red Dot Diva is making plans to log on and see what this is all about. What will the Osea villagers be doing during these 12 hours? Will they be making creepy eye-contact with the camera?

HBO Asia's New Chilling Survival Series The Head Premieres on 12 June 2020

It has been a steamy pot of sweltering heat and humidity in Red Dot Island for the last couple of weeks. That is why Red Dot Diva is looking forward to some visual relief consisting of icy land masses of Antarctica when WarnerMedia's HBO Asia premieres a new thriller called THE HEAD on 12 June at 9 PM (SG Time).

THE HEAD is about a small group of scientists called the Winterers, who are huddled in Polaris VI international polar station in Antarctica during its long freezing winter months. They are there to work on a project crucial to climate change. The team consists of members from different countries, and are led by a respected biologist Arthur Wilde (John Lynch). Then suddenly, during on of these long polar nights, communications from the station stalled, cutting the group off from the outside world.

When summer commander Johan Berg (Alexander Willaume) arrives at the station in spring, finding the team dead or missing. Johan's wife Annika (Laura Bach) is one of those missing, and with the help of apparent lone survivor Maggie (Katherine O'Donnelly), there is an urgency to find out what happened during the last 6 months of winter. Is there a killer on the loose? Or was there something stranger and more sinister that happened?