CAREER FILE: MUSICIAN KIN LEONN

AUTEUR ANTHONY CHEN'S LATEST FEATURE THE BREAKING ICE DEBUTED TO WARM ACCLAIM AT THIS YEAR'S CANNES FILM FESTIVAL. A TENDER STORY ABOUT THREE YOUNG ADULTS AND THEIR BLOSSOMING RELATIONSHIPS, THE FILM IS SET IN THE ICY LANDSCAPES OF CHINA'S NORTHEASTERN COUNTRYSIDE AND ITS CAST AND CREW ARE PREDOMINANTLY CHINESE SAVE FOR ONE CONNECTION THAT'S CLOSER TO HOME: KIN LEONN. THE YOUNG SINGAPORE AMBIENT ARTIST WAS BEHIND THE MOVIE'S DREAMY SCORE, MARKING HIS DEBUT AS A FEATURE FILM COMPOSER. AHEAD OF THE SHOW'S RELEASE IN CINEMAS HERE THIS MONTH, HE TELLS KENG YANG SHUEN ABOUT HOW HE LANDED THIS GIG, AND WHY THE ACT OF MAKING WILL ALWAYS BE MORE IMPORTANT TO HIM THAN THAT OF MAKING IT.

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Anthony Chen’s films are known for their hyper‑realist, humanistic studies of people, which might explain why the acclaimed auteur’s earlier works Ilo Ilo (2013) and Wet Season (2019) had no music score. The Breaking Ice – Chen’s fourth feature film – moves to a different beat. As he had shared in interviews multiple times before, he had always intended to break away from the tight control with which he had approached his first two movies, hoping to be more carefree with his follow‑up film.

The Breaking Ice, which Chen describes as a “love letter to the young people of China” – inspired by reports on the country’s dispirited youths – is the result of that freshly unchained spirit. Set in the small town of Yanji in northeastern China and centred on the growing relationship between three 20‑something adults, the 97‑minute‑long opus is also his first work that places such heavy emphasis on the use of music. “This film is about youth. And I knew I wanted music to capture the energy of it even as I was conceptualising the script,” says Chen.

This led him to enlist the Singapore composer and electronic artist Kin Leonn Ho – who goes simply by Kin Leonn when performing and beloved by the artistic crowd for his deeply evocative sonic tapestries rich in ambient, nature‑inflected sounds – to create the score. That the 28‑year‑old’s only other experience arranging music for a show was for the colourful 2022 documentary Baby Queen, which traces the life of the young Singapore drag queen Opera Tang, didn’t matter.