2013 was a year to remember for Singapore cinema mainly because of two films, each employing a very different mode of filmmaking style and philosophy but both achieving unprecedented levels of success in their own right. First, there was the international appreciation of Ilo Ilo, the feature debut by the 29-year old Anthony Chen. Catapulted into the headlines by the Caméra d’Or award in Cannes in May, it multiplied its success by a number of international accolades including Best Feature, Best New Director, Best Original Script and Best Supporting Actress at the 50th Golden Horse Film Festival in Taipei, Taiwan, and prizes and awards at film festivals worldwide.
Ilo Ilo is about a typical middle-class Singapore family struggling to cope during the Asian financial crisis in the second half of the 1990s. The family comprises Teck (Chen Tianwen), his pregnant working wife Hwee Leng (Malaysian actress Yeo Yann Yann) and their trouble- making 10-year old son Jiale (Koh Jia Ler). The plot is framed by the arrival (and eventual departure) of Teresa (Filipino actress Angeli Bayani), their new maid from the Ilo Ilo province in the Philippines. Jiale initially does not like Aunty Terry, as he calls her but his negative attitude towards her gradually develops into an affectionate bond.
Chen’s subtle, thoughtful and humanistic story portrays the challenges of a foreign maid adapting to life in a strange home and country while the Singapore family she works for has to adjust to a stranger living among them. It also reveals the complexities and nuances of each character and their relationships with one another: between husband and wife, parent and child, between each family member and Teresa. Through their interactions with Teresa, we see their flaws but also their intrinsic decency. Ilo Ilo is remarkable for its honesty and realism, presenting an excellent script, narrative subtlety and accomplished acting unusual in Singapore films. Director Chen also recreated the near-past atmosphere, achieving surprising authenticity by paying attention to the smallest details of the set.
Far from being an esoteric art-house film, Ilo Ilo is a work accessible to the widest audiences. This fact is reflected by the respectable box-office takings: in France, where it was released in 80 cinemas, Ilo Ilo climbed to number five at the box-office charts in Paris and it even crossed the S$1 million mark in Singapore after its re-release in November, rare for a Singapore film and even rarer for one that is not a comedy, horror or an action film. For a long time, Singapore has waited for a real international breakthrough; Ilo Ilo has finally reached this goal. For Anthony Chen, who was also invited to Los Angeles as one of Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch, the sudden international limelight presents both satisfaction and a true challenge. In a more local context, Jack Neo, perhaps the most familiar face of both Singapore’s film and television landscape has also seen unprecedented success. His Ah Boys to Men (2012), about a platoon of rookies trying to cope with the switch from civilian to army life became briefly the highest-grossing local film in Singapore’s history. At over S$6.2 million in takings, it broke the local record held by Money No Enough since 1998. It soon lost its crown to Neo’s own sequel Ah Boys to Men 2 (S$3 million), released on 31 January 2013, which collected an S$7.9 million at the box-office. It came in second on the box office chart in 2013, otherwise studded by Hollywood blockbusters led by the US-made Marvel Comics’ Iron Man 3 (S$12.6 million).
Ah Boys to Men 2 keeps most of the characters from the original Ah Boys. Ken (Joshua Tan), the spoiled youngster from the first film has matured and his negative attitude to the National Service has evaporated. Ken’s transformation, however, sets him at odds with some of his platoon mates. When one of the recruits is ditched by his girlfriend, the others help him hatch a plan to punish the new boyfriend. However, the rival boyfriend retaliates and a fight erupts. Ken comes to the rescue, proving himself a loyal friend. A third film sequel is in the pipeline and a stage musical is planned for 2014.
For the Chinese New Year in 2014, Jack Neo released The Lion Men (30 January), centring on two lion dance troupes in Singapore. Several members of the firmly traditional Tiger Crane troupe led by Master He (Chen Tianwen) split to form an independent group named Storm Riders, introducing a modern version of lion-dancing that incorporates new elements such as showy acrobatics, dancers on stilts and a hip-hop influence. Their common enemy is the gangsterish Black Hawk troupe which vies with them to win a major lion dance competition. To complicate matters, both lead dancers of the Tiger Crane and the Storm Riders (Wang Wei Liang and Tosh Zhang respectively) are in love with the daughter (Mainland Chinese actress Eva Cheng) of Master He. Although Neo deserves credit for spotlighting the art of the Chinese lion dance, the movie is unfortunately an aimless confusion of subplots and genres with an indecent amount of product placement. Thrown into the lion dance troupe rivalry and youthful romantic triangle are gang fights, a kung fu showdown, hip hop dancing, acrobatic stunts and detours into superhero fantasies with lots of CGI. The film ends abruptly like an episode in a TV series, to be continued in the next instalment.
Still, the S$4 million Lion Men did well at the box office, making S$1.8 million in the first two weeks.
In fact, Jack Neo came into film from television and he understands the attractions of familiarity and predictability that television shows offer many viewers. In this sense, Neo’s films may be seen as an extension of television comedies and dramas. Sentimentality, the stress on dialogue, exaggerated acting and a television-style of framing and editing are accepted and enjoyed by his viewers. Audiences also delight in hearing Chinese dialects such as Hokkien sprinkled throughout the mostly Mandarin dialogue which enhances the local flavour of the movies. His didacticism is in tune with many Singaporeans as this has usually been the way the country’s government and institutions communicate with the population. Neo’s familiar blend of comedy, satire, melodrama and moral lessons reflect the concerns of the average Singaporean such as family, work, education, conscription, financial problems and social issues. These characteristics assure his films are guaranteed a measure of success at home, although the ability to penetrate wider international markets in the way that Ilo Ilo has done will likely remain elusive.
Sex.Violence.FamilyValues, the directorial debut by Singapore scriptwriter Ken Quek, discussed here last year, finally made it to the cinema screens in March 2013. Originally released in October 2012, it was banned by the authorities soon after its premiere following the complaints of racism. The director appealed the decision; he explained that the allegedly racist remarks in fact satirised racism. They were left intact but the director made them less noticeable by altering the background music.
Innocents is the first feature of producer-director Wong Chen-hsi, who also wrote the script for her film about two children experiencing loneliness and ostracism in school, who develop a mutual friendship. Wong’s feature debut received praise at international film festivals, including Best Director at the Asian New Talent Shanghai IFF. The finely photographed meandering of 11-year-old Syafiqah (Nameera Ashley) and Huat (Cai Chengyue) through the deserted but scenic corners of the island city, accompanied by a gentle piano score, exude a dreamy, melancholic atmosphere. The actual plot, though, remains somewhat overshadowed by the film’s accomplished form.
That Girl in Pinafore, directed by Chai Yee Wei, is a teenage romance set in Singapore in 1993 against the backdrop of the popular xinyao musical movement – local Mandarin songs and ballads about youth and life in Singapore, which started in the 1980s and which had dwindled by the mid 1990s. Like Lim Suat Yen’s The Road Less Travelled (1997), the first Singapore film about xinyao, That Girl in Pinafore is about friendship, the pursuit of dreams, first love and disillusionment. In this conventional tale, the best parts are the song and dance sequences which also feature Singapore twin sisters Hayley and Jayley Woo.
Non-fiction films are an important element of Singapore cinema. One of most prominent documentary filmmakers is Tan Pin Pin whose shorts and features such as Singapore GaGa and Invisible City bring to the surface what has been forgotten or ignored. Her new feature, To Singapore, with Love (2013) is no different in this regard. Breaching a taboo subject, the director looks at her home city through the eyes of Singapore’s political exiles, some of whom have not set foot in their home country for half a century. Speaking to them in Malaysia, Thailand and the UK, the now elderly exiles recount their lives and relate their vision of Singapore for which they had struggled and for which they eventually had to leave. The film had its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, and it won Best Director in the Documentary section at the 10th Dubai International Film Festival. At the time of writing, To Singapore, with Love has not been released in Singapore; when it is eventually submitted to the authorities, it is sincerely hoped that the film will be permitted to be released without restrictions.
The title of Singapore-based Amit Virmani’s Menstrual Man is neither a joke nor provocation. His feature documentary is about Arunachalam Muruganantham, an Indian entrepreneur who realised that many Indian women cannot afford sanitary pads, don’t have access to them, or simply don’t know about them. As a result, they are prone to reproductive diseases and are often sequestered and considered unclean when having their period. To change this, he constructed and cleverly promoted a hand-operated machine for manufacturing a simple but efficient alternative. Virmani’s documentary is homage to this inspiring inventor and also an informative tool helping to spread the idea throughout India in an understandable and entertaining way.
A welcome piece of news for film lovers is the announced revival of the Singapore International Film Festival (new acronym SGIFF), now in its 25th year. The original SIFF experienced turbulence after Philip Cheah, its long-term programmer and spiritual guardian resigned in August 2008; the last time it was held was in 2011. The festival will be moved from its April slot to the end of 2014, when it will take place concurrently with the Asia Television Forum & Market (ATF), and the ScreenSingapore and Asian Television Awards (ATA). The new board of the Festival will be led by Shaw Soo Wei, formerly executive director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society. The Festival director will be Wahyuni (Yuni) Hadi, co-producer of the award-winning Ilo Ilo and a former co-director of the SIFF with Zhang Wenjie, who will serve as the new Festival programmer.
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Yvonne Ng Uhde and Jan Uhde