Electric Wongaloo
2024 · 14m · Singapore
Directed by Arel Koh
After the death of his wife, an elderly man named Albert tries to revitalize his love life and is thrust into modern dating, navigating a disapproving grandson, online catfishes, and chaotic retro parties as he learns to move on from the past.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Finally, a film that refuses the tired widow-finds-solace-in-gardening arc and instead throws an old man into neon chaos and catfish traps with zero apology—treating late-life romance like the messy, ridiculous, genuinely subversive act it is in a youth-obsessed culture.
Koh's film demonstrates disciplined tonal control, balancing sentiment with the visual language of retro kitsch in a way that recalls the formal playfulness of genre-aware comedy; the grandson subplot and app-dating sequences are constructed with clear thematic purpose rather than scattered impulse.
The kinetic energy of those neon party sequences—the editing rhythm, the color saturation choices—could've tipped into pure pastiche, but there's a moment where the visual excess drops away and you see Albert's actual loneliness, and that single tonal shift is what makes the whole thing breathe.