Singaporean's Avengers: Endgame parody 'pure genius', say Russo brothers

His version of the Naruto mirror run challenge on Tik Tok, the short-form mobile video platform, became a favourite among viewers and was described as a winner by Asian-American news site NextShark.

Now Jaze Phua's latest effort, costing just $12.70, including fried chicken for his cast, has even got The Hulk excited.

Phua, a Singaporean filmmaker, released a video on YouTube on March 31 recreating the trailer of Marvel's Avengers: Endgame, and it has lit up social media platforms.

Called Avengers: Endgame Official Parody Trailer, the video has already garnered 1.1 million views on Twitter, more than 103,000 views on YouTube and more than 34,000 likes on Instagram.

Actor Mark Ruffalo, who plays The Hulk, said on Twitter that he was "struggling to see the difference" between the original trailer and the parody.

The movie's directors, Anthony and Joseph Russo, said the video was "pure genius".

Phua is obviously over the moon.

The 27-year-old, who runs a production company, heard about the Russos' tweet when a friend woke him to tell him about it on Sunday.

Speaking to The New Paper yesterday, he said it felt like a dream.

"My first thought was this is going to be on my resume to enter Hollywood," he said.

"I'm very honoured."

For the 2min 27sec video, Phua used former schoolmates Douglas Tan, 28, a director of photography, as Captain America and Ian Chua, 27, who works in insurance, and played both Hawkeye and The Hulk.

Friends Kua Wanlin, 23, a childcare teacher, was Black Widow and Nebula, and Melanie Tay, 24, a technology recruitment consultant, played Captain Marvel.

Phua himself played multiple roles, including Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man and Falcon.

MATERIALS

Using materials around his office and whiteboard markers that cost him $2.70, he recreated Thor's Stormbreaker, Iron Man's arc reactor and the new Avengers space suits that were revealed at the end of the official trailer of Avengers: Endgame.

Phua, who is one of the men on Cleo's website for its Most Eligible Bachelors 2019 competition, said: "We couldn't recreate Nebula's make-up so we just put blue plastic bags on our heads.

"In the scene where Hawkeye was running away from an explosion, my friends and I were literally just holding up orange cloth and it was all just so silly that we couldn't stop laughing."

Phua's trailer was filmed and edited within seven days.

Most of the scenes were shot around his MacPherson office, but the opening "desert" scene was filmed at East Coast Park.

The space suit reveal was shot at his alma mater, the Nanyang Technological University's Art, Design & Media school lobby.

Phua's favourite superhero is Iron Man, played by Robert Downey Jr, and he is still holding out hope that the actor will give his video a nod.

"I'm hoping that Robert Downey Jr will retweet the video but, even if he just watches it, I will be content," Phua said.