2015 was a year of celebration in Singapore, as the country commemorated 50 years of its existence as an independent republic. At the same time, the festivities were tinged with a respectful remembrance of the republic’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, who had passed away at the age of 91 in March that year.
Looking at the history of Singapore cinema in the 1965-2015 period, it may be useful to recall the specific circumstances under which it developed. Feature filmmaking started in 1927, when Singapore was a British colony. In the following years it developed mainly as a Malay-language production that peaked in the 1950s and 1960s with the Chinese, Malay and Indian (Tamil) ethnic groups contributing to its success. Film production gradually declined in the second half of the 1970s, followed by a hiatus of approximately 15 years. Feature filmmaking was revived after 1991. However, unlike in the earlier decades when Malay was the predominant language in local production, films from the revival period and after are mainly in the Chinese language or in English. The annual output gradually expanded until it stabilized at about 20 features after 2005.
In its golden jubilee year, Singapore produced 20 features of different genres, quality and commercial success. The box-office star was, as in the past several years, a comedy directed by the favourite of Singapore’s mainstream audience, Jack Neo. Ah Boys to Men 3: Frogmen, is the third installment of Neo’s enormously successful franchise featuring young recruits in the National Service (Ah Boys to Men and Ah Boys to Men 2). This time, the story revolves around a group of young soldiers in the Naval Diving Unit’s arduous combat diver course. Its fondness for melodrama and a disproportionate amount of product placement did not affect the movie’s box-office success: Frogmen achieved an absolute record for a Singapore movie at S$10.95 million. The next installment, Ah Boys to Men 4, is planned for 2017.
Jack Neo’s latest feature Long Long Time Ago, a period drama, is one of the big screen contributions to Singapore’s fiftieth birthday. Like Frogmen, it is a two-part film. According to the director’s established strategy, it was released on 4 February 2016 to coincide with the Lunar New Year festivities.
The film is set in the first decade of independent Singapore (1965 to the early 1970s), the time of hard beginnings, race riots, and the search for a national identity. Neo used his own childhood experiences to recreate village life and its atmosphere. In the main roles are Neo veteran Mark Lee, Aileen Tan, and Wang Lei. Tan is the story’s focus as widow Zhao Di who, rejected by her late husband’s family, works hard to look after her three daughters during a time of economic and social insecurity and transformation. One of the dramatic highlights of the film is the flood of 1969, which was considered then to be the worst in 35 years. Jack Neo said he wanted to create a film that would preserve for young generations a realistic image of the changing life in the times gone by. Location shootings of Long Long Time Ago were in Singapore and Ipoh, Malaysia.
The film cost S$6 million, considerably higher than that of Neo’s other movies. For example, Ah Boys to Men: Frogmen cost approximately half. Although Long Long Time Ago topped the Lunar New Year Singapore box-office week at S$1.65 million in six days, it may not repeat the extraordinary success of the Ah Boys to Men series. Part two of the film is expected to be released at the end of March 2016.
A film in 2015 that deserves special attention is the feature anthology 7 Letters, created as a collective tribute to Singapore’s 50th birthday by seven accomplished Singapore directors. Produced by filmmaker Royston Tan, and funded by the Singapore Film Commission, these “letters to Singapore” are an instant of a fortunate alignment of diverse subjects, styles and creative perspectives with a common purpose.
Often, such ad hoc undertakings result in conformist, politically correct products in which the artistic aspect falls short. 7 Letters is a delightful exception. It struck an unusually powerful chord with local audiences, leading to sold-out screenings and extended runs. The individual episodes are as follows:
1) Cinema, directed by Eric Khoo. A charming tribute to the “golden age” of Singapore cinema of the 1950s and 1960s through the framework of a movie-within-a- movie.
2) That Girl, directed by Jack Neo. A delicate story of budding affection where a 12-year-old girl’s crush on a classmate causes her difficulties with her parents.
3) The Flame, directed by K. Rajagopal. An intimate story of the generational conflict between farther and son involving the question of Singaporean identity.
4) Bunga Sayang (Flower of Love), directed by Royston Tan. The power of music brings together two neighbours across generations and cultural differences.
5) Pineapple Town, directed by Tan Pin Pin. A multilayered and thoughtful fictional drama concerning the search for roots as an adoptive mother from Singapore who travels to Malaysia to meet the biological mother of her child.
6) Parting, directed by Boo Junfeng. A story of love, loss and memory which may be seen in an allegorical light. Here, an aging Malay man from Malaysia journeys to Singapore in search of his first love, an ethnic Chinese girl, only to find that the city he left in 1965, when Singapore and Malaysia separated, has changed beyond recognition.
7) Grandma Positioning System (GPS), directed by Kelvin Tong. A three-tier-generation family from Singapore crosses the border to Johor each year to visit the grandfather’s grave. Tong, who has made a number of horror films, uses the death motif here to highlight generational gaps, the true value of traditions and the relentless pace of change in Singapore’s landscape in a gently humorous and ultimately moving way.
Although the seven episodes were produced without the filmmakers knowing what the others were doing, certain themes run through them. Most of the films contain a wistful sense of loss or nostalgia and an acceptance of the way things are. Interestingly, more than half of the episodes were either filmed in Malaysia or featured border-crossings, an acknowledgement that Singapore-Malaysia ties are far deeper and stronger historically, culturally and emotionally, than the politics that separated them.
Another feature dedicated to Singapore’s 50th anniversary was 1965, co-directed by Randy Ang and Daniel Yun. The plot of this dramatic thriller is focused on the race riots of 1964 and the events leading to the establishment of Singapore as an independent state in August 1965. The central characters of the plot include police inspector Cheng (Qi Yuwu) and his brother Seng (James Seah), the leader of a Chinese radical activist group. Living in the same village is Malay fruit seller Khatijah (Deanna Yusoff) who blames Cheng for her son’s death during a riot.
1965 is an ambitious film and a missed opportunity, an opinion confirmed by most of Singapore’s film critics. Its shortcomings are manifold (including a painful re-enactment showing a tearful Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, announcing the separation of Singapore from Malaysia), including the script, directing and acting. Not surprisingly, the movie also failed at the country’s box office.
Eric Khoo has also released an erotic drama In the Room, co-produced with Hong Kong film producer Shi Nansun, budgeted at S$1.12 million. This omnibus feature comprises six erotic stories with vastly different kinks and characters, each set in the same Singapore hotel room, spanning several decades. Termed Singapore’s first erotic film, it has often been noted that while imaginatively designed and beautifully photographed, it is a pity that the script and performances are too uneven to give heart and soul to what must remain an interesting concept.
Nevertheless, it has made a respectable tour around the globe, including festivals in Toronto, San Sebastián, Busan and Singapore, where it was rated R21 (restricted to viewers 21 years and above) and shown uncut in December 2015. It is hardly surprising that such a film would come under the scrutiny of the censors. At first, Khoo withdrew his submission for a film classification rating from the Media Development Authority (MDA) as he would be required to make cuts for a Singapore commercial release. Later, however, the filmmaker made a modified version of the film with two contentious segments “reworked” but not cut. This parallel “International version” which has the same length as the original one, was released in Singapore on 25 February 2016.
3688 is a feature musical-comedy film directed by Royston Tan. The title follows the director’s tradition of naming his films by using numbers. In the Chinese Hokkien dialect, 3688 sounds like “Wanting to be Fei Fei” (Xiang ru fei fei) which is, in effect, the film’s alternate title.
With 3688, Tan returns to feature production after a seven-year absence. In 3688, Tan pays tribute to the music of popular Taiwanese singer Feng Fei Fei (1953-2012), who had a large following in Singapore and Malaysia. Xia Fei Fei (Singapore pop singer Joi Chua), the heroine of 3688, is a parking attendant pushing 40, living an uneventful life with her widowed father who is growing senile. She dreams of becoming a singer like her idol Feng Fei Fei. In order to help with her father’s rising medical expenses, Xia Fei Fei decides to enter a National Singing Competition.
3688 includes exaggerated characters and whimsical choreography which adds a touch of humour. What elevates the film, though, is the sensitive and nuanced acting by Joi Chua and Michael Tan who plays her father, as well as Chua’s understated, soulful stage performances.
To commemorate 80 years of its existence, the Cathay Organisation, one of the two major production companies of the golden age of Singapore cinema in the 1950s and 1960s, has returned to production after 16 years of being involved mostly in exhibition, distribution, and the property business. Our Sister Mambo takes its inspiration from Cathay’s popular 1957 Hong Kong comedy Our Sister Hedy about a widower and his four unmarried daughters. In this anniversary remake, the focus is on a middle-class Singaporean family: Mr Wong (comedian Moses Tan), his wife (thespian Audrey Luo) and their four daughters. Television star Michelle Chong plays second sister Mambo who is trying to get her other sisters married.
The 38-year-old Chong is in fact six years older than her on-screen mother and 11 years older than her on-screen elder sister (Ethel Yap)! Although Luo is at ease playing an older woman, her being a mother to four grown-up daughters stretches the limits of credibility. Nevertheless, this is an engaging, feel-good movie with references to Cathay’s rich history without being overbearing. The film was directed by Malaysian-born, Taiwan-based Ho Wi Ding (Pinoy Sunday) with a lively script by Michael Chiang who also wrote the screenplay for Cathay’s Army Daze (1996).
The Naked DJ is a 75-minute documentary by Singapore director Kan Lume (Solos, 2007) featuring Singapore’s veteran maverick DJ Chris Ho (aka X’Ho). Lume accompanies Ho on his first visit to China, to discover his Chinese roots. During the trip, the filmmaker records Ho’s reflections, including those on his native Singapore (mostly critical), its life and governance. The film won the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film at Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2014.
Last but not least, Daniel Hui’s feature-length Snakeskin is an intriguing mix of documentary and science fiction meshing history and myth, memories real and imagined through the device of time travel. The influence of Chris Marker’s La Jetée is undeniable. Set in 2066, the sole survivor of a mysterious cult in Singapore uses archival footage to relate events from the country’s history in 2014 and before, recounting the rise and fall of the cult while characters from the past offer their personal narratives. In a year of Singapore’s 50th anniversary celebration, Snakeskin offers an original and ambivalent look at the official history of the country, a reminder that things may not always be what they seem.
Note: 1 SGD = USD 0.725 // EUR 0.66
Yvonne Ng Uhde and Jan Uhde