THERE'S ONLY ONE name on the business card - Djinn. In Muslim folklore it stands for imp, or a genie that can take on a human form. The young man with this weird card does not possess supernatural powers but he is hoping for a little help from the paranormal to springboard him on to the A-list of Asian directors.
Djinn, or Ong Lay Jinn as he was known before he decided to change his name, has just completed Return To Pontianak, the first supernatural film to come out of Singapore in 25 years.
The US has The Blair Witch Project, Japan has The Ring and Thailand has Nang Nak, so why not a home-grown horror tale from Singapore? The Pontianak myth stems from Malay folklore, where a Pontianak is a female vampire who preys on men and newborn babies. 'The myth is as prevalent as the Dracula myth in Europe,' says the first-time feature film director. 'We wanted to relive the Pontianak story but we also wanted to look at urban life versus rural beliefs. We live in big cities but just at our back door is the jungle; it's a totally different world where beliefs are rooted in the supernatural.'
The idea to make a contemporary Pontianak movie - the last good ones were black and white movies that Malaysian film-makers produced in the 1960s - had been kicking around in Djinn's mind for the past two years, even before the release of The Blair Witch Project.
The story concerns Charity (Hollywood actress Hiep Thi Le), an adopted child who is compelled to return from the US to seek out the burial place of her natural mother. She enlists the help of a pen-pal called Raymond (Victor Khong), who drags along a couple of other friends plus a Malay guide to take them into the jungle.
While in the jungle they run into a series of mishaps. When the boys in the group start disappearing they realise that they are being stalked by a mysterious Malay girl (Fadzlinda Mohammed Shafie).