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The Triad

Two students face off against each other for their master's honour after one of them turns to the dark side...

  • Fabian Hee
    Director
    Defenders of The Rainforest
  • Fabian Hee
    Writer
    Defenders of The Rainforest
  • Fabian Hee
    Producer
    Defenders of The Rainforest
  • Dalton Yeo
    Key Cast
  • Hensly Callixtus
    Key Cast
  • Jason Ho
    Key Cast
  • Carlucci Noel
    Director of Photography
  • Yeeboon Tan
    Camera Operator
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Action, Comedy
  • Runtime:
    3 minutes 10 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 30, 2017
  • Production Budget:
    40 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Malaysia
  • Country of Filming:
    Malaysia
  • Language:
    Chinese
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Indie Filmmaker Night 2017
    Kuching
    Malaysia
    September 30, 2017
    Malaysian Premiere
  • Bad Film Festival
    New York
    United States
    June 9, 2018
    Official Selection
Director Biography - Fabian Hee

Fabian Hee was born September 19, 1985 in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. After finishing his studies in Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Fabian ventured into the video game industry, fulfilling his childhood dream of making games. While working as a sound designer in the industry, he realized that his passion lies in creating cinematic atmospheres and soundscapes that formed the worlds of the games he worked on. He began teaching himself filmmaking, using YouTube as an experimental playground, and released his first short film "Google is Skynet is Nokia" which won the Award of Merit at the Accolade Global Film Competition. His next successful short film "The Accountant, The Man" was nominated and screened as part of the Asians on Film Festival, USA and I Filmmaker International Film Festival in Spain. Following that, he set up a post-production studio and released his film "Defenders of The Rainforest" to showcase his team's visual effects capabilities, winning the "Sarawak Movie in the Rainforest" short film competition. He then worked together with British director Taras Demian Groves in 2016 to create a cinematic soundscape for his short film "Nowhere" which went on to win multiple awards the world over.

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Director Statement

"The Triad" came about when my DP and I were discussing Hong Kong movies and how the action seemed so much more fluid and "trackable" compared to the shaky-cam fast cutting found in most Hollywood productions. Being a fan of these films, we set out to emulate everything that's great about them in a short film of our own.

The script was an attempt at re-creating the three kingdoms saga of Chinese mythology, putting a modern twist to it - bringing the 3 modern kingdoms of China, Japan, and Korea together in a martial arts action short. Themes of betrayal and revenge were central to the story, as how it always is with underground associations in East Asian gang wars.

Due to our inexperience, we enlisted the help of our friend Jason, an experienced martial artist and action choreographer, to help us get the most out of our actors. This was an eye-opener for all of us as we planned, and practiced the choreography and cinematography countless times before actually shooting the film.

The shoot itself was an eye-opener too, as it really showed a side to directing that I had never experienced before. We were shooting under the hot sun (32 degrees Celcius) for a few hours and our team was pushed to its limits. Our DP almost suffered a heat stroke, one of our actors almost gave up, and mutiny was at hand. I was worried we wouldn't be able to finish the shoot, especially since we had little to no budget for this film.

This scenario really shaped the ending as we decided to do a wholesale change on the original ending, playing to the natural comedic strengths of our actors. We shot the ending in one-take, improvising all our lines. We managed to turn the hot and tense situation to a Monty Python-esque finale that we could all laugh at in the end, long after we had finished shooting.

While editing the footage, I realised that as a whole, the film had evolved from being a cheesy story about betrayal and revenge to a sort of statement about teamwork in making films. If one falls, everything falls. Even though it might not seem apparent with the comedic ending, the "drama" that happened towards the end of the shoot serves as a reminder that if everyone cannot work together, there will be no movie.

I learned a lot from making this short film and I hope you enjoy every bit of it, from the action to the cheesy storyline to the Monty Python ending.