Writer: Peter Chai

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Watch this if you liked: “Ah Beng The Movie: Three Wishes” & "You Are The Apple Of My Eye"

Directed by Yoko Chou, "Tears Of The Mum" features the challenging life of Ah Soon (Johnson Low), a national badminton player, who has a difficult time in making choices between his dreams, family, friends and love interest, Coco (Amber Chia).

Looking at the way the cast portrays themselves in this drama, it seems that each of their performances are fairly decent. First of all, Johnson Low did manage to bring out his character Ah Soon well, but his acting skills are reminiscent to that of his prior television series performances. Also, Ah Soon's filial piety towards his single mother who raises him and his sister fails to touch the audience.

There is no surprise at all with Chou's decision to cast Amber Chia as a girl who is so ambitious to become a well-known supermodel based on Chia's main profession in reality. Nevertheless, it is Chia's extremely strong catwalk model kind of image that reveals her unnatural acting in the film. However her emotional scenes are as natural as they can be, so perhaps there is where her acting chops lies best.

The badminton scenes lack of excitement, unlike other sport centred films that lies heavily on the sense of anxiety and heart stopping crucial moments.

Born in Taiwan and residing in Malaysia for more than a decade, Chou has her own understanding of the Malaysian culture by emphasizing the importance of togetherness with individuals from different races and faith. She should be credited for gathering talents ranging from Chinese, Malay, Indian, Kadazan and Japanese into her film.

Overall, "Tears Of The Mom" gives us a great picture of one's conflicting situation where he or she is drowning in the dilemma of reaching dreams and accepting reality, and of course it tells you to appreciate whatever we have in life especially our parents. Watching with your children or parents is not a bad choice to make.

Cinema Online, 23 May 2012