Phua Chu Kang

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd, also known as PCK Pte Ltd or Phua Chu Kang for short, is a Singaporean sitcom on MediaCorp TV Channel 5. The show debuted in Singapore in 1996.


Plot Summary and Cast

Phua Chu Kang

The series revolves around the Phua family, most notably Phua Chu Kang (Gurmit Singh), a contractor who boasts that he is the "Best in Singapore, and JB, and some say Batam" - this is despite the fact that he has only two men working for him and they are both inept and lazy. He is also noted for his famous cliché or catchphrase: "Don't play play" (pronounce as "pray pray" according to his articulation). There is also another famous catchphrase which is being used in his famous 2003 music video called "PCK Sar-vivor Rap", that is, "Use your brain!" (pronounced as "blain"). His personal clothing trademarks are his yellow pair of boots, curly hair, a giant mole, and long nails on his pinky fingers. Phua Chu Kang is portrayed as an "Ah Beng", Singlish slang for a stereotypical Chinese gangster, complete with habits such as hoisting one leg up on the seat of a chair when he sits down and growing one long fingernail to scratch his ears.

His family and others

Phua Chu Kang lives with his wife, Rosie (Irene Ang) who loves playing mahjong and wearing loud, colourful clothing. At the end of Season 6, she gave birth to twins, Romeo Ferrari and Crystal Jade. Chu Kang's brother is Anthony Phua Chu Beng (Pierre Png) who works for PCK Pte Ltd as an architect (his specialty is designing toilets). While Chu Kang is often regarded as strong but stupid, Chu Beng is the sissy but smart son. The one person who drives Chu Beng crazy is his obsessive compulsive vegetarian wife, Margaret Phua (Tan Kheng Hua) who consistently makes fun of her brother and sister in law. Together, they have a son, Aloysius Phua (Marcus Ng), most notably known as "Aloy" for short, who worships his uncle more than his dad. Another family member is Ah Ma (Neo Swee Lin), Chu Kang and Chu Beng's mother. She left at the end of Season 4 to be with her new love. Chu Kang's two lazy workers are fat and lazy King Kong (Charlie Tan) who loves "tau huay" (a Chinese bean curd dessert) and slow-witted eyecandy Ah Goon (Ray Kuan) who dresses in revealing denim cut-offs all the time. Along with Gurmit Singh, Charlie Tan has been an original cast member with the series, winning hearts from Season 1.


Production history

The Phua Chu Kang character made his first appearance in the second season of "Gurmit's World", a comedy in which Gurmit Singh portrayed his 'relatives' in a series of skits.

In addition, PCK handed out clues at one of the detours of The Amazing Race 3. Participants in the race were required to locate a HDB apartment in Choa Chu Kang, Singapore where they would be given the clues by PCK. Apparently, the original idea was to have PCK at the pit stop alongside Phil Keoghan (at the end of every stage of The Amazing Race, there would be a local person dressed in traditional clothing welcoming the contestants to the country), but Singaporeans protested that this would give foreigners the wrong impression of the local people in general.

In the debut season of the show, Edwin Chong played Phua Chu Beng but ceased to be in the cast as of season 2. Pierre permanently took over the role from the second season and has made the role popular ever since.



In the year 2003, during the SARS outbreak, PCK had also appeared in a music video called "PCK Sar-vivor Rap". This 4-minute long music video is to teach the local on how to prevent SARS in their country. Sar-vivor Rap (Video) Moreover, it also comes with an audio version (with remix) of the song. Sar-vivor Rap (Audio Remix) In addition, his music video also comes with a limited edition compilation album which the album name is "The Sar-vivor Rap" which was announced for its album launched on July 1, 2003 and it was available in all Singapore local music stores. This album also includes 14 bonus tracks from artises such as Mandy Moore, Destiny's Child and Jessica Simpson.

Recently, the character had also made a guest appearance on the seventh episode in a local sitcom called ABC DJ.

PCK had also appeared on two TV advertisements. He, along with Chu Beng, made his first advertisement appearance regarding the introduction of 3G mobile services and phones in Malaysia by Maxis and recently, an advertisement called Bob's Big Surprise.

The last season of this show, Season 8, was aired on October 31, 2006 in Singapore. In this season, there were many guest appearances from other famous local television shows to mark the end of the PCK series. Moreover, according to Gurmit Singh, season 8's shows were more exciting and interesting ever than the episodes in the previous seasons.

Singlish criticism

This popular comedy is notable for its Singlish language conversation and dialogue amongst, by, or between the characters in this comedy show most of the time. Thus the other word or term for Singlish was coined by some local people: "Phua Chu Kanglish".

Much like another Singaporean sitcom, Under One Roof, the show was put under pressure by the government to use proper English instead of Singlish. Critics of the show have labelled Phua Chu Kang as an inaccurate or disgraceful representation of Singapore. However, it has to be acknowledged that Phua Chu Kang is immensely popular in Singapore and Malaysia.


Trivia

* Gurmit Singh, who played the lead role of PCK, is also one of the Singapore Idol hosts, along with Daniel Ong.

* Ah Goon (played by Ray Kuan) is the goondu (stupid) of the show. In reality, Ray is actually the one with the most impressive academic qualifications of the entire cast. He graduated with honors in Building and Real Estate from the National University of Singapore.

* Ah Goon is the worker replacing Ah Boon and Ah Soon who also played as Chu Kang's employees in the earlier episodes. They are related as cousins in the series. They also appeared together in an episode featuring them as an upcoming boy band.

* Gurmit had also make two appearances on Living with Lydia. In his first appearance we learn his PCK character once had a somewhat romantic encounter with the series' main character Lydia Lum (Lydia Sum) when she first arrived in Singapore in 1979 to be a "Singapore Girl." His second appearance was in a cameo as himself with the judges from Singapore Idol.

* Chu Kang's mole is actually made of papier-mâché. It is moulded into a ball, painted black, and attached to his face with cosmetic glue.

* Gurmit once ate his prosthetic mole, after it fell into a bowl of bubur-chacha which he later had to eat for a scene.

* Marcus Ng, who played as Aloysius Phua in the show, was only aged 11 years old when he made his first debut in PCK in the year 1997.


Phua Chu Kang - Season 5 Episode 4 ~ Kang, to his shock and amazement, wins the Toto grand prize of ten million dollars. Everyone starts making plans on how they are going to spend it. Kang bursts their bubble by declaring he's keeping all the money for himself, closing down PCK Pte Ltd and moving to a seaside bungalow in Perth.

The family slowly falls apart from greed and mistrust. And there is another minor complication. Every time Kang tries to collect his ten million dollar winnings, he keeps getting knocked unconscious, and waking up to the very same day...over and over and over again. Kangs curse is that only he realises its the same day being repeated. How will he ever get the money?

External links

1. Official website
2. IMDb profile