From taking part in the Taiwanese sci-fi thriller series The Black Box to developing its own original concept into a new series, Game Not Over, with a Taiwanese team, Singapore production company WaWa Pictures has been expanding its involvement in overseas productions and collaborations. WaWa Pictures CEO Molby Low said in an interview that the expertise and resources of their overseas partners had allowed the team to explore subjects previously beyond its means.
The Black Box has been nominated for four awards at this year’s Golden Bell Awards: the Creative Award, Best Editing, Best Art & Design and Best Visual Effects. Other Singapore contenders include Christopher Lee, who is up for Best Leading Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film for Sea of Intimacy, and Rail Life Story, which has been nominated for Best Lifestyle Show. Rail Life Story was filmed by August Pictures and produced together with Mediacorp and Taiwan’s Public Television Service.
Low was holidaying in mainland China when interviewed. He had planned to fly to Taiwan on 23 October to attend the ceremony for the Golden Bell Awards for Drama Series on Saturday (24 October). However, Super Typhoon Champi disrupted his plans: his flight was moved from the morning of 23 October to 4am the following day, with further arrangements dependent on the weather. At the time of writing, the awards ceremony for television shows has been postponed from 23 October to 25 October, while the awards ceremony for drama series is set to proceed as scheduled.
WaWa finds a good fit with Taiwanese visual effects company TWR
On the topic of WaWa’s collaboration with Taiwanese visual effects company TWR Entertainment, Low said the two sides had known each other since before COVID-19. Even then, they saw that their businesses and development plans could complement each other.
Low said that WaWa focused primarily on project development. In the past, budget constraints had sometimes forced them to scale back their ambitions during post-production and limited their choice of subject matter. “We simply couldn’t take on some projects that required extensive visual effects.”
TWR, meanwhile, had long provided visual effects services to other production teams and wanted to develop its own work. The two sides quickly found common ground, combining WaWa’s strengths in story development and production with TWR’s post-production expertise to take projects forward. According to Low, when two production companies worked together, dividing the work usually required some adjustment, but having different specialities made it easier for their production processes to fit together.
Their collaboration plans were put on hold during the pandemic. Afterwards, TWR began work on The Black Box, an adaptation of a webcomic. By the time WaWa formally joined, filming was about to begin. WaWa’s main contributions were therefore to offer feedback on the scripts and send two directors who had studied virtual production in South Korea to work on a segment that used the technology.
Nana and Andie Chen join Game Not Over
Following that first collaboration, the two companies teamed up on the fantasy adventure series Game Not Over. WaWa was more deeply involved this time, having also come up with the original concept. Filming has since wrapped and post-production is now under way. A preview screening of the first two episodes will be held in Kaohsiung on 25 October, ahead of the expected release of the full series in the first half of 2027.
Game Not Over stars Tien Hsin, Wang Yu-xuan and Lee Lee-zen, with Singapore actors Nana (Chen Wenshi) and Andie Chen also appearing. The story centres on an emotionally distant blended family whose minds enter a virtual game world set amid apocalyptic disasters. They must work together to clear its challenges and return to reality.
There has been no shortage of survival-game series in recent years, but Low said Game Not Over stands out for its focus on family relationships. The characters must overcome challenges involving earthquakes, typhoons and a game similar to Werewolf, gradually growing closer as they work together to survive.
WaWa’s first dialect drama swaps lectures for fortune-telling
Alongside its overseas collaborations, WaWa continues to produce local content. Its new projects include the dialect drama Ah Gong Has His Say, aimed at older viewers. The cast includes Marcus Chin, Richard Low, Xiang Yun and Wang Yiting.
Low said that WaWa had never produced a dialect drama before, so the project was both a challenge and an opportunity to rethink how to tell stories that older people would want to hear.
The team therefore began with communication problems in everyday life. When dealing with their elders, younger people sometimes feel that their good intentions are not being heard, and conclude that the older person is stubborn and unwilling to take advice. “But that’s because we’re going about it the wrong way, not because they’re stubborn and refuse to listen.”
That observation became a key starting point for the series. The grandfather, played by Chin, is a former scriptwriter who becomes a fortune-teller, using fortune-telling as a way to communicate with others. People may not be interested when he tries to reason with them directly, but when he offers to “read their fortunes”, they are happy to gather round and listen.
Commissioned by the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI), the eight-episode dialect drama Ah Gong Has His Say airs on Channel 8 every Friday at noon.
