page_title: Ah Boys to Men
section_title: Filming
hierarchical_section_title: Ah Boys to Men / Production / Filming
caption_attribution_description: English: Robinson Road, Singapore.
context_page_description: Ah Boys to Men is a 2012 Singaporean comedy film produced and directed by Jack Neo, written by Neo and Link Sng and starring Joshua Tan, Maxi Lim, Wang Weiliang, Noah Yap, Ridhwan Azman and Aizuddin Nasser. The film is the first installment of the Ah Boys to Men series. The main plot revolves around a group of army recruits in National Service in Singapore. Neo had wanted to shoot an army-themed film since his army days, but could not find a suitable chance to do so. Ah Boys to Men is the first local film to be released in two parts and the first to film in Pulau Tekong, as well as the first South-East Asian film to feature Dolby Atmos surround sound. The film's theme song, "Recruits' Anthem" was written and composed by one of the cast, Tosh Zhang.
  The film was released on November 8, 2012. It is the highest-grossing Singaporean film of all time, and has grossed over four times its S$3 million budget. Buoyed by audience demand, a third installment titled Ah Boys to Men 3: Frogmen was released on February 19, 2015. It features the same cast but is however not a sequel to the second film.
context_section_description: As part of preparation for the film, the cast members underwent a two-day Basic Military Training familiarisation course, which was, to one of the stars, Tosh Zhang, "as tough as what we really went through during national service." Filming took place mostly in Pulau Tekong (which is used exclusively as a training base for various Singapore Army units and home to the Basic Military Training Centre), making Ah Boys to Men the first film to have filmed there. The "unpredictable" weather was a problem the crew encountered while filming at Tekong; 35 days were spent filming there. Other filming locations included Robinson Road, which was used for a major war scene and specially sealed off to the public for a day on August 19, 2012 so as to allow the crew to film; it was the first time it was closed for such reason. Neo was warned beforehand that destruction of the road incur fines.
  A certain fight scene set in a restaurant, which involved ten actors, took a night to finish filming. Aerial shots required the use of Spidercams and cameras strapped onto remote control plane. Scenes set in the 1970s were, according to Neo, the hardest to film as the details were hard to perfect. Additionally, Neo had to specially get 1970s-era local army helmets due to MINDEF not having any in stock. Army uniforms set in that era could not be found; Neo instead purchased new sets of uniforms and dyed them until they reached the desired colour. About half a day was spent on set daily; filming in total took seventy days to finish in September 2012.
caption: Robinson Road was one of the film's practical locations. An estimated S$100,000 was spent filming there.[44]
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