Unlucky Plaza is a 2014 Singaporean black comedythriller film written and directed by Ken Kwek. It stars Epy Quizon as a Filipino immigrant to Singapore who takes hostages after falling for a scam. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released in Singapore on 16 April 2015. The story is told in a series of flashbacks from the point of view of a talk show that has reunited the captor and his former hostages.
Filipino immigrant Onassis Hernandez mistreats his restaurant workers, causing a disgruntled cook to sabotage an inspection by the Singaporean health department. After Hernandez subsequently falls for a popular rental scam that targets immigrants, he takes several Singaporeans hostage and broadcasts his demands for social change on YouTube.
Unlucky Plaza premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival[2] on 4 September 2014.[3] Its Singaporean premiere was at the Singapore International Film Festival on 4 December 2014.[1]Shaw Organisation released it in Singapore on 16 April 2015,[4] and it grossed US$46,331.[5] Cinemaflix Entertainment released it in the US in January 2016.[6] & finally released in the Philippines co-produced by VIVA Films in April 2016.
Collecting four American reviews, Metacritic, a review aggregator, rated it 38/100.[7] Stephanie Luo of AsiaOne rated it 3.5/5 stars and wrote that it "highlights real issues in Singapore society well", though it has several unrealistic scenes.[8] Iliyas Ong of Time Out Singapore rated it 2/5 stars and wrote the film's social satire, "As belaboured and on-the-nose as Kwek's point is, it's also terrifyingly real."[9] Clarence Tsui of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Sentimentality and small-screen aesthetics turn social critique into soap opera."[10] Nicolas Rapold of The New York Times wrote that the talk show framing device "destroys the suspense and seals a sense of the movie as both slick and amateurish".[11] Martin Tsai of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Writer-director Ken Kwek means for the proceedings to be farcical, but seldom are they actually funny."[12] Simon Abrams of The Village Voice wrote, "Kwek's refreshing focus on his terrorized protagonists' pre-abduction lives keeps Unlucky Plaza afloat once it invests in generic ticking-clock thrills."[13]
