THE SANDBOX Movie Review | by tiffanyyong.com
Recommended Audience: Fans of Peps Goh, Oon Shu An, Benjamin Kheng, Nathan Hartono, Tan Kheng Hua, Jon Cancio, Estelle Fly, Fauzi Azzhar, Xuan Ong, Aaron Mossadeg, Andrew Marko, Tiffany Yong (finally!), action film and mockumentary lovers, and anyone who’s ever been curious what Sandbox is about
THE SANDBOX Synopsis
Stuntman Peps Goh is fighting to keep his stunt school, Sandbox Training Ground, alive, with help from John (his brother-slash-best-friend) and John’s ex-wife Min, who’d honestly rather cut their losses.
Then a rumour spreads online that Marvel is scouting Singapore for its next superhero. Overnight, the school with no students is flooded with wannabe heroes, show-offs and misfits, all convinced Sandbox can whip them into shape. Can a bunch of people who can’t even fall properly save the school?
Runtime: 113 minutes | Rating: PG13
Viewer Rating: I’m in it, so I’ll leave the rating to the pros!
THE SANDBOX Review:
Tiffany Yong: This is probably the most personal review I have ever written, because both Peps and I are in the film! I stopped reviewing movies when we started Sandbox, so this is my first review in about 5–6 years. What better way to pick my film reviewer hat back up than with a film about Sandbox?
I’ve watched the film three times, and each viewing felt like a different movie. The first time was at SGIFF 2025, shortly after we announced that we might not be able to keep the extended lease because multiple projects had fallen through. The second time was at the gala premiere on 6 October 2026, just before the theatrical release, when the space had just been reinstated and the keys returned to SLA. Same jokes, very different feelings. The third time was a quiet rewatch with a friend.
I play Ashley, Peps’ volunteer assistant coach. Truth is, Ashley isn’t one person. Budget didn’t allow for the entire Sandbox team to be in the film, so Ashley became all of them in one: a (highly caricatured!) condensed version of everyone who has kept Sandbox running over the past 5 years. So this one’s for Danish Dasuki, Kasimir Poh Cieslak and Cayden Kong. If you’ve ever trained at Sandbox, you’ll probably spot a bit of each of them in her.
And in reality, Peps and I are very much a combination of Min, John and Peps himself. For the record, Peps is not “delusional” at all! The team had to pivot our marketing several times just to get more sign-ups.
Most reviews, including the ones linked below, say the film has too many characters and too many backstories. As someone who lived it, I’d say that’s the most accurate thing about it. In 5 years of Sandbox, we didn’t just hear our students’ backstories. Even our core team had their own personal battles, whether with relationships, work or family.
If you’re wondering whether the students are real: Syafiq (Fauzi Azzhar) is every office worker who took up classes after hours and kept coming back because they had a dream. Megan (Xuan Ong) is every influencer who turned up for the ‘gram, not the craft. So imagine our Sandbox coaches juggling students with different learning speeds, different personalities and different availabilities, all coming for the Actors’ Martial Competency Programme (AMCP). Yes, that’s an actual Sandbox programme too. Chaos indeed.
Two moments affected me the most. I wasn’t on set for either of them, so both hit hard the first time I watched the film.
The first was the tender moment when Min (Oon Shu An) finally lets her guard down and reveals the pain she’s been carrying. It made me realise how similar I am to her character. We deal with loss and pain the same way: by burying ourselves in work, and then more work.
The second was the monologue by Megan’s mum (Tan Kheng Hua). It hit home so hard. As the front-facing people of a company that tried for 5 years to get support from everywhere, and couldn’t, I felt every word of it.
Peps Goh: Talking purely about the action, the action scenes in this film are a good representation of everything the Sandbox Stunt Team has gone through over the past 5 years.
Not just in terms of the knowledge accrued by the action director, coordinator, choreographer and action DP unit (myself, Danish Dasuki, Cayden Kong and Nicholas Lee respectively), although a lot of it is that. It’s also the skill level the stunt performers developed by training with us consistently all these years. That’s what made it possible.
On top of that, as with every other project in Singapore I’ve picked up over the past decade and more, there’s time. “I’m sorry, this is all the time we have to shoot this scene” is a staple phrase I’ve heard from every single producer, without a single exception, since I started my career.
That’s why the 6 mentorship programmes Sandbox has run have all emphasised a workflow built on efficiency and teamwork. And the team really sent it in this film, moving like a well-oiled machine, with every person contributing to the flow of the set and driving it forward to what you see on screen.
All 6 actor hero reels (the students’ show reel in the end credits) and my own Gambit-inspired reel (the Gambit scene) were shot in 2 days. That’s a runtime-to-shoot-time ratio I have not seen any other action production in Singapore achieve in my 14 years in this industry, with output at a level rarely seen out of Singapore. For that, I am immensely proud of the Sandbox team, and endlessly grateful to them for making it all possible.
I’ll always feel guilty that they weren’t given the space to walk the carpet with me, due to the time crunch at the Gala, and that I wasn’t able to include them in the promotion of the film.
But it will happen. With the work they’re capable of, it’s inevitable that the limelight will fall on them in the works to come. Onwards we go!
Tiffany Yong: I will leave the professional critiquing to the pros. Check out their reviews here:
Do You Know?
- John was written as Peps’ brother in the script, but in post-production he became more of a best friend. The film never quite settles which, and that’s fine by us. Either way, the relationship is very real to James. About 15 years ago, James’ younger brother moved to Malaysia to box professionally, with James as his coach. When boxing couldn’t pay the bills, the two of them opened a gym together, knowing next to nothing about running a business. That experience became the DNA of The Sandbox. In James’ own words: “I was the John to his Peps.” Read more in 8 Days’ interview with James.
A lot of family support was roped in for this film. Director James Thoo’s wife is the second mum who brings her kids to Sandbox for the sand, and their kids also appear in the final scene. The production roped in real parents and kids for those scenes, though for the record, no one ever actually turned up at the real Sandbox looking for a sandbox! Jon Cancio’s wife is one of the pickleball players. Nathan Hartono’s wife, Liz Sergeant Tan, has a special feature as the “interviewer” of this documentary.- Fauzi Azzhar plays Syafiq, an ex-MOE civil servant who quits his job to pursue his action dream. In real life, Fauzi really was a civil servant before this!
- In the first draft of the script, Min (Oon Shu An) was actually named… Tiffany! Peps vetoed it. A character named Tiffany being his brother’s ex-wife was a little too close to home.
The kids sitting in the real sandbox in the final scene are Peps’ and my kids, Alyra 3 year old and Hexyl 9 month old at the point of shoot!- So why “Sandbox”? The name was inspired by the 2020 Korean drama Start-Up. We wanted to give our students the support and guidance Peps’ generation of stuntmen never received: a safe space to fall, so they never have to attempt it for the first time on an actual set without any rehearsal.
That broken glass door is real. It broke a month before the shoot, and when the production team dropped by for the location recce, they decided it suited the school’s situation in the plot, so they asked us not to replace the glass panel.- Joash Goh, Benjamin Kheng’s gloriously self-obsessed character, albeit exaggerated, was actuallyloosely modelled after a real Sandbox student who later became one of our assistants. (No, we won’t tell you who, but he was the joy of Sandbox, energy weren’t the same anymore without him!)
- The final montage of Sandbox being built wasn’t in the original plan. James found the YouTube video of the making of Sandbox and decided to add it into the film. Jon Cancio had to do an additional shoot, pretending to be part of the build.
- The film was shot at the real Sandbox Training Ground. The space you see on screen is the one we handed back to SLA.
(Spoiler alert!) In the film, Sandbox gets bought over by a financial advisory. In real life, no one bought us over. We simply came to the end of our lease. The space has been returned to SLA and is rumoured to be torn down for an HDB estate, now that Cantonment MRT is up and running.- The space is gone, but the company and the people are still around. “Fall safely” was never something we only did within the compound of Sandbox Training Ground. We do it everywhere and anywhere.
Follow the film on Instagram at @sandboxmovie.sg!
The Sandbox is out in cinemas from 8 October 2026, including at Shaw Theatres. Catch it while it’s still showing. Independent local films don’t stay long!
Special thanks and credits to the Sandbox crew who were involved in filming and helping out the previz and actual shoot!
Action Director: Peps Goh
Stunt Coordinator: Danish Dasuki
Action unit DP: Nicholas Lee
Choreographer: Cayden Kong
Stunt Unit Producer: Tiffany Yong
Stunt Assistant: Pearl Hoo
Performers: Jonathan Chung, Kelly Choo, Diana Basil Heng, Liew Chuin Leong, Choo Zhi Yong, Justin Ang, Klinsen Soh, Tan Zhen Jie
Previz Performers: Jean Seizure, Thattham Lim, Grace Pang, Jaymeson Olivero, Ted Ngoo, Foo Ping
xoxo
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*Disclosure: Tiffany Yong is a cast member of The Sandbox and co-founder of Sandbox Training Ground. No monetary compensation was received for this review.
Epiphany: / ɪˈpɪf(ə)ni,ɛˈpɪf(ə)ni / noun / A moment of sudden and great revelation.
Duplet: / ˈdjuːplɪt / noun / 2 electrons working together, forming a bond between atoms.
|| Derived from the anagram of the duo’s name, whom met through a film project acting as lovers. After which as fate would have it, couples indeed they became. And now together they bring to you staycations & travelogues, beauty and relationship tips, your one-stop-shop to all the fun things you can do with your special someone. ||
@PepsGoh: Actor || Fight Choreographer || Free Running Athlete
@Tiffanyyongwt4242: Actor || Blogger || Consultant