Cinema of Singapore
Encyclopedia
Despite having a flourishing Chinese and Malay film industry in the 1950s and 1960s, Singapore
's film industry declined after independence in 1965. There were a few films that featured Singaporean actors and were set in Singapore, including Saint Jack
and They Call Her Cleopatra Wong
. However, most of these were not released in Singapore and cannot be labelled as truly Singaporean productions.
, which was released in 1995. Bugis Street was a gaudy film about the famous sleazy district where transvestites
and transsexuals were found. The same year saw the release of Mee Pok Man
, the first full-length film made by an independent Singaporean filmmaker, Eric Khoo
, on a tight budget of S$100,000. Concerning a lonely noodle seller who falls for a prostitute, Mee Pok Man earned much critical accolade worldwide and encouraged more experimental, independent filmmaking in the nation.
Army Daze
, made in 1996, took a humorous look at Singapore's national service
, and turned in high profits at the box office.
In 1997 came another Eric Khoo feature film, 12 Storeys
, a highly acclaimed production which was the first Singaporean film to be shown at Cannes
. Interweaving 3 stories about life in the HDB high-rise flats, 12 Storeys was seen as a breakthrough for Singaporean films, combining a coherent plot with Singaporean production crew and actors, such as Jack Neo
and Koh Boon Pin. The rest of the decade was encouraging for the growing film industry. Glen Goei
's Forever Fever (1998) was picked up by Miramax for S$4.5 million and re-released in the U.S.
as That's the Way I Like It. These two years saw the releases of a number of other films, such as A Road Less Travelled (1997), God or Dog (1997), Tiger's Whip (1998) and The Teenage Textbook Movie (1998).
(1998) which eventually catapulted the nation's drive towards movie-making. Using a local crew of actors drawn from television comedies, this 'heartland' comedy written by Jack Neo used a smattering of Singlish
and Hokkien
to make a realistic, easily identifiable drama about everybody's quest to make a quick buck. Made with less than S$1 million, it raked in S$5,800,000, making it the most commercially profitable local film to date. It also demonstrated the viable potential of Singapore's film industry. The next year would be a boom year for local films. Eight Singaporean feature films were made in 1999 alone, the most notable being Liang Po Po: The Movie
(starring Jack Neo in a reprisal of his television cross-gender role), That One No Enough, the first directorial effect of Jack Neo, and Eating Air, made by film critic Kelvin Tong and film editor Jasmine Ng on a budget of S$800,000. Eating Air did not break even; That One No Enough barely did and only Liang Po Po: The Movie continued the vein of commercial success of Money No Enough, collecting S$3.03 million.
1999 also marked a watershed for Singapore films. Raintree Pictures, the filmmaking subsidiary of MediaCorp Productions
, was started. Raintree Pictures invested in two regional co-productions, Liang Po Po and The Truth About Jane and Sam
, which starred Singaporean television lead actress Fann Wong
with Taiwan
ese singer Peter Ho
and Hong Kong
director Derek Yee
. Raintree Pictures would finance a number of local and Hong Kong productions in years to come, and are the producer company of the films of Jack Neo. Subsequent productions, such as 2000 AD
(2000) and The Tree
(2001), also drew on Hong Kong star power; the company invested in critically acclaimed regional films such as The Eye
(2002) and Infernal Affairs II (2003). Raintree Pictures also produced two English-language local productions, Chicken Rice War
(2000) and One Leg Kicking
(2001).
With the financing of a local production company and the setting up of organisations such as the Singapore Film Commission (SFC, set up in 1998), budding filmmakers, especially independent ones, found it easier to make movies on subsidies and loaned funding. The advent of digital video
also meant that some novice filmmakers could experiment with cheaper alternatives. Features like Stories about Love (2000) and Return to Pontianak (2001) were both shot on digital videos, even though they were not commercial successes.
(2002) was a peek into the ultra-competitive academic lifestyle as seen through three local students who performed poorly in grades; its acerbic social commentary marked another height for Singaporean films. Homerun
(2003) was a remake of the Iranian Children of Heaven
in a local, pre-independent era context; it won for its young lead Megan Zheng
the first Golden Horse Award for Best Newcomer. The Best Bet
(2004) took a humorous dig at heartlanders' obsessions with lotteries. Neo averages a film per year and his productions feature local Singaporean (usually television) artistes in filmic roles. They have been successes locally and abroad, especially in those places with a Chinese-language market, such as Hong Kong. He has started his own artiste management company, J-Team Productions.
Royston Tan
, a young Singapore TV commercial director who has been making award-winning shorts for years, released 15: The Movie
, his first feature, in 2003. An expanded version of an earlier short film he made, this 90-min movie on the fringe and drug-abusing delinquents used bold subject-matter and featured some graphic scenes with non-professional actors. When the film censorship board passed it with cuts, it prompted a backlash from the director in the form of Cut, an all-singing musical satire à la Tsai Ming-liang
lampooning the system. Interestingly, this short film was passed uncensored by the board and was seen during the Singapore International Film Festival
, but there were open discussions about it during local parliamentary sessions, prompting remarks that the government was "not amused" by it. Royston Tan has since made three more features, 4:30 (2005), 881 (2007) and 12 Lotus (2008).
's horror flick The Maid
, two Jack-Neo co-directed movies, I Do I Do and One More Chance, and less mainstream offerings like Eric Khoo
's critically acclaimed Cannes
opener Be with Me
, and Perth
, Djinn's dark take on Scorsese
's Taxi Driver
.
In 2006, the independent feature Becoming Royston
paid homage to the above-mentioned filmmaker. It was made under new Originasian Pictures. The film went on its festival run in Europe and South Asia and was released in 2007. 2006 also saw the premiere of Singapore Dreaming
by Woo Yen Yen and Colin Goh, who won the Montblanc New Screenwriters Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, the first Singaporeans to do so. The film was also screened at numerous festivals worldwide and, in 2007, became the first Singaporean feature to win the Audience Award for Narrative Feature at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York.
In 2007, Jack Neo released another film known as Just Follow Law
(我们在政府部门的日子) which took a dig at bureaucracy in the civil service, as well as the lengthy procedures one had to go through in Singapore to get a permit for various things. This film garnered generally positive reviews and was moderately successful at the box office. However, the success story of the year was Royston Tan's 881
, which brought Singapore's seventh month getai
culture to the big screens. While it was intended to be a niche film, it exceeded expectations and became one of the highest grossing local films of all time. Critics generally gave it positive reviews, and many believe that it was the fact that the film gave younger Singaporean Chinese more insight into their traditional culture that made it a success. In addition, the use of Hokkien songs, which had been suppressed by the government as part of the Speak Mandarin Campaign
, may have contributed to its popularity.
In 2008, Eric Khoo's Tamil language
social drama My Magic
became Singapore's first film to compete for the Palme d'Or
at the Cannes Film Festival
.
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
's film industry declined after independence in 1965. There were a few films that featured Singaporean actors and were set in Singapore, including Saint Jack
Saint Jack
Saint Jack is a 1973 novel by Paul Theroux and a 1979 film of the same name. It tells the life of Jack Flowers, a pimp in Singapore. Feeling hopeless and undervalued, Jack tries to make money by setting up his own bordello, and clashes with Chinese triad members in the process.Ben Gazzara stars as...
and They Call Her Cleopatra Wong
They Call Her Cleopatra Wong
They Call Her... Cleopatra Wong is a 1978 film, starring Marrie Lee, Franco Guerrero, Dante Varonna and George Estregan. The film, riding on the success of Hong Kong martial arts films of the era as well as the James Bond and superspy craze, details the adventures of a female Interpol agent...
. However, most of these were not released in Singapore and cannot be labelled as truly Singaporean productions.
Early '90s pioneers
The first truly Singaporean film came in 1991's Medium Rare, which was based on a real-life local cult killer, Adrian Lim, who was hanged in 1988 for murder. Although it cost over S$2 million in production, the film performed dismally at the box office. The film took in merely S$130,000 locally but broke the ice for the next coming Singapore movie, Bugis StreetBugis Street
Bugis, in the city-state of Singapore, was renowned internationally from the 1950s to the 1980s for its nightly gathering of trans women, a phenomenon which made it one of Singapore's top tourist destinations during that period....
, which was released in 1995. Bugis Street was a gaudy film about the famous sleazy district where transvestites
Transvestism
Transvestism is the practice of cross-dressing, which is wearing clothing traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often has additional connotations. -History:Although the word transvestism was coined as late as the 1910s,...
and transsexuals were found. The same year saw the release of Mee Pok Man
Mee Pok Man
Mee Pok Man is a 1995 film by Eric Khoo. The film is Eric Khoo's debut feature, after making award-winning short films for years.The film is a black comedy starring Joe Ng as the male protagonist Johnny, a Chinese seller of noodles , and Michelle Goh as the prostitute Bunny...
, the first full-length film made by an independent Singaporean filmmaker, Eric Khoo
Eric Khoo
Eric Khoo is a film director from Singapore. He was introduced to the world of cinema at a very early age. He was educated at United World College of South East Asia before attending City Art Institute in Sydney, Australia where he pursued cinematography...
, on a tight budget of S$100,000. Concerning a lonely noodle seller who falls for a prostitute, Mee Pok Man earned much critical accolade worldwide and encouraged more experimental, independent filmmaking in the nation.
Army Daze
Army Daze
Army Daze is a 1996 Singaporean comedy movie based on the 1987 theater play of the same name by Singaporean writer Michael Chiang...
, made in 1996, took a humorous look at Singapore's national service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
, and turned in high profits at the box office.
In 1997 came another Eric Khoo feature film, 12 Storeys
12 Storeys
12 Storeys is a 1997 Singaporean comedy film directed by Eric Khoo. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.-Synopsis:...
, a highly acclaimed production which was the first Singaporean film to be shown at Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
. Interweaving 3 stories about life in the HDB high-rise flats, 12 Storeys was seen as a breakthrough for Singaporean films, combining a coherent plot with Singaporean production crew and actors, such as Jack Neo
Jack Neo
Jack Neo Chee Keong , PBM, credited as Jack Neo on screen, is a Chinese Singaporean film and television actor, host and director...
and Koh Boon Pin. The rest of the decade was encouraging for the growing film industry. Glen Goei
Glen Goei
Glen Goei is one of Singapore's leading film and theatre directors. His broad ranging body of work embraces the full gamut of performing and visual arts from film, theatre, musicals, large scale shows, World Expos, dance, music to architectural design.Glen Goei was the Artistic Director of Mu-Lan...
's Forever Fever (1998) was picked up by Miramax for S$4.5 million and re-released in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
as That's the Way I Like It. These two years saw the releases of a number of other films, such as A Road Less Travelled (1997), God or Dog (1997), Tiger's Whip (1998) and The Teenage Textbook Movie (1998).
Late '90s successes
However, it was the phenomenal success of Money No EnoughMoney No Enough
Money No Enough is a Singaporean comedy film about three friends with financial problems who start a car polishing business together. Written by Jack Neo, directed by Tay Teck Lock and produced by JSP Films, the movie stars Neo, Mark Lee and Henry Thia...
(1998) which eventually catapulted the nation's drive towards movie-making. Using a local crew of actors drawn from television comedies, this 'heartland' comedy written by Jack Neo used a smattering of Singlish
Singlish
Colloquial Singaporean English, also known as Singlish, is an English-based creole language spoken in Singapore.Singlish is commonly regarded with low prestige in Singapore. The Singaporean government and many Singaporeans alike heavily discourage the use of Singlish in favour of Standard English...
and Hokkien
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
to make a realistic, easily identifiable drama about everybody's quest to make a quick buck. Made with less than S$1 million, it raked in S$5,800,000, making it the most commercially profitable local film to date. It also demonstrated the viable potential of Singapore's film industry. The next year would be a boom year for local films. Eight Singaporean feature films were made in 1999 alone, the most notable being Liang Po Po: The Movie
Liang Po Po: The Movie
The movie Liang Po Po was directed by Jack Neo in 1999. It starred the comedian director Jack Neo himself, who cross-dresses as the titular old lady, which in English is translated as "Granny Neo".-Cast:...
(starring Jack Neo in a reprisal of his television cross-gender role), That One No Enough, the first directorial effect of Jack Neo, and Eating Air, made by film critic Kelvin Tong and film editor Jasmine Ng on a budget of S$800,000. Eating Air did not break even; That One No Enough barely did and only Liang Po Po: The Movie continued the vein of commercial success of Money No Enough, collecting S$3.03 million.
1999 also marked a watershed for Singapore films. Raintree Pictures, the filmmaking subsidiary of MediaCorp Productions
MediaCorp
Media Corporation of Singapore, better known as MediaCorp, is a group of commercial media companies in Singapore, with business interests in television and radio broadcasting, interactive media, and, to a lesser extent, print publishing and film-making....
, was started. Raintree Pictures invested in two regional co-productions, Liang Po Po and The Truth About Jane and Sam
The Truth About Jane and Sam
The Truth About Jane and Sam is a 1999 Hong Kong film co-produced by Hong Kong's Film Unlimited and Singapore's Raintree Pictures...
, which starred Singaporean television lead actress Fann Wong
Fann Wong
Fann Woon Fong , better known by her stage name Fann Wong, is a Singaporean actress, singer and model.At Singapore's Star Awards 1995, Fann became the first actress to win both the Best Actress and Best Newcomer awards in the same year...
with Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
ese singer Peter Ho
Peter Ho
Peter Ho Jun-tung is an American-Taiwanese singer and actor. Ho was born in Los Angeles, California, and raised in Taiwan and Canada...
and Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
director Derek Yee
Derek Yee
Derek Yee Tung-sing , born in 1957, is a former Shaw Brothers actor from Hong Kong, currently a film director and screenwriter, who has achieved fame and respect in Hong Kong and international film festival circuits for treading carefully commercial viability concerns with artistic integrity...
. Raintree Pictures would finance a number of local and Hong Kong productions in years to come, and are the producer company of the films of Jack Neo. Subsequent productions, such as 2000 AD
2000 AD (film)
2000 AD is a 2000 Hong Kong action film directed by Gordon Chan and produced by Hong Kong 's Media Asia Films and Singaporean publisher manufactured company studio distributed holder production house has : Raintree Pictures and United States based from American version regions based in North...
(2000) and The Tree
The Tree
The Tree is an autobiographical book by John Fowles. In it, Fowles discusses the essence of nature and its relation to the creative arts and especially writing....
(2001), also drew on Hong Kong star power; the company invested in critically acclaimed regional films such as The Eye
The Eye
The Eye, was the debut album of the Icelandic post-punk group KUKL. This album was released in September 1984, through Crass Records and was recorded at Southern Studios in January 1984. The album peaked at number 6 in the UK Independent albums chart...
(2002) and Infernal Affairs II (2003). Raintree Pictures also produced two English-language local productions, Chicken Rice War
Chicken Rice War
Chicken Rice War is a Singaporean film released in 2000 by Raintree Pictures. It is an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in a Singaporean setting, where fierce competition between rival Chicken Rice hawkers resulted in bitter enmity...
(2000) and One Leg Kicking
One Leg Kicking
One Leg Kicking is a 2001 Singaporean comedy-film movie that is about several soccer amateurs that compete in a soccer event for the 2002 World Cup Finals. The main actors of this movie are Gurmit Singh as Tai Po and Mark Lee as Handsome.-Plot:...
(2001).
With the financing of a local production company and the setting up of organisations such as the Singapore Film Commission (SFC, set up in 1998), budding filmmakers, especially independent ones, found it easier to make movies on subsidies and loaned funding. The advent of digital video
Digital video
Digital video is a type of digital recording system that works by using a digital rather than an analog video signal.The terms camera, video camera, and camcorder are used interchangeably in this article.- History :...
also meant that some novice filmmakers could experiment with cheaper alternatives. Features like Stories about Love (2000) and Return to Pontianak (2001) were both shot on digital videos, even though they were not commercial successes.
Jack Neo and Royston Tan
The success story since the turn of the century must be from local comedian-turned-director Jack Neo. Financed by Raintree Pictures, he made a number of hits dealing with Singapore's heartland problems in an engaging and deceptively light-hearted fashion. I Not StupidI Not Stupid
I Not Stupid is a Singaporean comedy film about the lives, struggles, and adventures of three Primary 6 pupils who are placed in the academically inferior EM3 stream. Written and directed by Jack Neo, and produced by MediaCorp Raintree Pictures, the movie stars Xiang Yun, Richard Low, Selena Tan,...
(2002) was a peek into the ultra-competitive academic lifestyle as seen through three local students who performed poorly in grades; its acerbic social commentary marked another height for Singaporean films. Homerun
Homerun (film)
Homerun Chinese: 跑吧！孩子 pinyin: pǎo bà háizǐ) is a 2003 Singaporean Mandarin-language film. A remake of the award-winning Iranian film Children of Heaven, Homerun is a drama about two poor siblings and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes...
(2003) was a remake of the Iranian Children of Heaven
Children of Heaven
Children of Heaven is a 1997 Iranian adventure comedy-drama film written and directed by Majid Majidi. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998...
in a local, pre-independent era context; it won for its young lead Megan Zheng
Megan Zheng
Megan Zheng is a Singaporean actress who starred in two Singaporean movies: Homerun and One More Chance...
the first Golden Horse Award for Best Newcomer. The Best Bet
The Best Bet
The Best Bet is a Singaporean film as well as a Singaporean television series. The film was written and directed by Jack Neo, and produced by MediaCorp Raintree Pictures. The film, with a different cast than the television series stars Richard Low, Mark Lee, Christopher Lee, Chen Liping and Joanne...
(2004) took a humorous dig at heartlanders' obsessions with lotteries. Neo averages a film per year and his productions feature local Singaporean (usually television) artistes in filmic roles. They have been successes locally and abroad, especially in those places with a Chinese-language market, such as Hong Kong. He has started his own artiste management company, J-Team Productions.
Royston Tan
Royston Tan
Royston Tan is a Singaporean filmmaker.Tan is a graduate from Temasek Polytechnic, where he took a course in Visual Communication. He first came into prominence through his short films: Sons , Hock Hiap Leong , 48 on AIDS , Mother and 15...
, a young Singapore TV commercial director who has been making award-winning shorts for years, released 15: The Movie
15 (film)
15: The Movie, also known simply as 15, is a 2003 Singaporean film about teenage gangsters in the Singapore suburbs. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Royston Tan, the film is an expanded version of Tan's 2002 award-winning short film, also titled 15...
, his first feature, in 2003. An expanded version of an earlier short film he made, this 90-min movie on the fringe and drug-abusing delinquents used bold subject-matter and featured some graphic scenes with non-professional actors. When the film censorship board passed it with cuts, it prompted a backlash from the director in the form of Cut, an all-singing musical satire à la Tsai Ming-liang
Tsai Ming-liang
Tsai Ming-liang is one of the most celebrated "Second New Wave" film directors of Taiwanese Cinema, along with earlier contemporaries such as Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Edward Yang...
lampooning the system. Interestingly, this short film was passed uncensored by the board and was seen during the Singapore International Film Festival
Singapore International Film Festival
The Singapore International Film Festival was launched in 1987. The festival is an annual film event, held around April/May each year, and screens about 300 films from over 45 countries...
, but there were open discussions about it during local parliamentary sessions, prompting remarks that the government was "not amused" by it. Royston Tan has since made three more features, 4:30 (2005), 881 (2007) and 12 Lotus (2008).
2005 and beyond
2005 could be seen as another mini-boom year for Singaporean cinema, with commercially successful fares like Kelvin TongKelvin Tong
Kelvin Tong Weng Kian is a Singaporean film director, screenwriter and producer.-Career:Kelvin's passion for theatre and filmmaking began in his secondary school days in Victoria School. He went on to study at Victoria Junior College...
's horror flick The Maid
The Maid
The Maid is a 2005 Singaporean horror film telling of a maid recently arriving from the Philippines. She has to acclimate herself to the customs of the Chinese Ghost Month, during which she struggles with supernatural forces...
, two Jack-Neo co-directed movies, I Do I Do and One More Chance, and less mainstream offerings like Eric Khoo
Eric Khoo
Eric Khoo is a film director from Singapore. He was introduced to the world of cinema at a very early age. He was educated at United World College of South East Asia before attending City Art Institute in Sydney, Australia where he pursued cinematography...
's critically acclaimed Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
opener Be with Me
Be with Me
Be with Me is a 2005 Singaporean drama film directed by Eric Khoo. The film is inspired by the life of deaf-and-blind teacher Theresa Poh Lin Chan. It premiered as the Director's Fortnight selection in the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. It was also the official entry from Singapore for the 78th Academy...
, and Perth
Perth (film)
Perth: The Geylang Massacre is a 2004 drama film written and directed by Djinn . It stars Kay Tong Lim as Harry Lee, a part-time security guard and taxicab driver in Singapore. He is a self-described "simple man" whose life becomes complicated when he finds work as a driver for an escort service...
, Djinn's dark take on Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film was nominated for four Academy...
.
In 2006, the independent feature Becoming Royston
Becoming Royston
Becoming Royston is a full-length feature film directed by Nicholas Chee and produced by Originasian Pictures. The film gained cult status with its comprehensive online web marketing strategy and promotions as reported by Variety Magazine. Becoming Royston was one of the first feature films in...
paid homage to the above-mentioned filmmaker. It was made under new Originasian Pictures. The film went on its festival run in Europe and South Asia and was released in 2007. 2006 also saw the premiere of Singapore Dreaming
Singapore Dreaming
Singapore Dreaming is a 2006 film set in Singapore. The film follows the Loh family, a typical Singaporean working-class family, through their aspirations for a better life and the harsh reality that makes it difficult for them to fulfill these aspirations...
by Woo Yen Yen and Colin Goh, who won the Montblanc New Screenwriters Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, the first Singaporeans to do so. The film was also screened at numerous festivals worldwide and, in 2007, became the first Singaporean feature to win the Audience Award for Narrative Feature at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York.
In 2007, Jack Neo released another film known as Just Follow Law
Just Follow Law
Just Follow Law is a 2007 Singaporean comedy film directed by Jack Neo, and starring Gurmit Singh of Phua Chu Kang fame, Fann Wong, Moses Lim, Samuel Chong, Lina Ng and Steven Woon. The title is a pun on the Singlish phrase "just follow lor", which means to comply with orders without questioning why...
(我们在政府部门的日子) which took a dig at bureaucracy in the civil service, as well as the lengthy procedures one had to go through in Singapore to get a permit for various things. This film garnered generally positive reviews and was moderately successful at the box office. However, the success story of the year was Royston Tan's 881
881 (film)
881 is a 2007 Singaporean musical-comedy-drama film written and directed by Royston Tan, based on the Singapore Getai scene. It is only the second Singaporean film that has been released in Japan....
, which brought Singapore's seventh month getai
Getai
A getai , is a usually boisterous live stage performance held during the Ghost Festival commonly held in Singapore and Malaysia, in contrast to the generally solemn mood of the festival. However the performance is also routinely played at other Chinese festivals...
culture to the big screens. While it was intended to be a niche film, it exceeded expectations and became one of the highest grossing local films of all time. Critics generally gave it positive reviews, and many believe that it was the fact that the film gave younger Singaporean Chinese more insight into their traditional culture that made it a success. In addition, the use of Hokkien songs, which had been suppressed by the government as part of the Speak Mandarin Campaign
Speak Mandarin Campaign
The Speak Mandarin Campaign is an initiative by the government of Singapore to encourage the Singaporean Chinese population to speak Mandarin, one of the four official languages of Singapore...
, may have contributed to its popularity.
In 2008, Eric Khoo's Tamil language
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
social drama My Magic
My Magic
My Magic is a 2008 Singaporean Tamil language drama film directed by Eric Khoo and produced by Zhao Wei Films in association with Infinite Frameworks. My Magic was the 1st Singapore film to be nominated for the Palme D'Or, the top award for film at the Cannes Film Festival. Its has been also...
became Singapore's first film to compete for the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
.
Further reading
- Ciecko, Anne Tereska (2006) Contemporary Asian Cinema. New York: Berg. ISBN 1-84520-237-6
- Millet, Raphaël (2006) Singapore Cinema. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet ISBN 981-4155-42-X
- Ramani, Vinita (January 26, 2006). "Speech Acts- Censorship and Documentary Filmmaking in Singapore". Criticine.
- Slater, Ben (2006) Kinda Hot: The Making of Saint Jack in Singapore. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish. ISBN 981-261-069-3
- Tan, Kenneth Paul (2008) Cinema and Television in Singapore: Resistance in One Dimension. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-16643-1; ISBN 1567-2794. see website
- Uhde, Jan and Uhde, Yvonne (2000) Latent Images: Film in Singapore. Singapore: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-588714-X
- Uhde, Jan and Uhde, Yvonne (2009) Latent Images: Film in Singapore. Second updated and revised edition. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press ISBN 978-9971-69-456-2
See also
- Cinema of the world
- Asian cinemaAsian cinemaAsian cinema refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Asia, and is also sometimes known as Eastern cinema. More commonly however, it is used to refer to the cinema of Eastern, Southeastern and Southern Asia. West Asian cinema is sometimes classified as part of Middle...
- Censorship in SingaporeCensorship in SingaporeCensorship in Singapore mainly targets sexual, political, racial and religious issues, as defined by out-of-bounds markers.-Implementation:The Media Development Authority approves publications, issues arts entertainment licences and enforces the Free-to-air TV Programme Code, Cable TV Programme...
- Southeast Asian cinemaSoutheast Asian cinemaSoutheast Asian cinema refers to the film industry and films produced in, and/or by natives of, Southeast Asia. By definition, it describes any films produced in Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.Southeast Asian cinema...
- East Asian cinemaEast Asian cinemaEast Asian cinema is a term used to refer to the film industry and films produced in and/or by natives of East Asia. It can be seen as a sub-section of Asian cinema, which in turn is a sub-section of world cinema, a catchall term used in the English-speaking world to refer to all foreign language...
- Cinema of MalaysiaCinema of MalaysiaThe cinema of Malaysia revolves around a small film industry that dates back to the 1930s. At present, Malaysia produces about 20 feature films annually, and between 300–400 television dramas and serials a year apart from the in-house productions by the individual television stations. Malaysia also...
- World cinemaWorld cinemaWorld cinema is a term used primarily in English language speaking countries to refer to the films and film industries of non-English speaking countries. It is therefore often used interchangeably with the term foreign film...
- List of Singaporean films
- List of films set in Singapore
- List of cinemas in Singapore
- List of highest-grossing films in Singapore
- The SubstationThe SubstationThe Substation is Singapore's first and only independent contemporary arts centre. It was founded in 1990 by Kuo Pao Kun.The Substation is centrally located in the city's civic district. Venues at The Substation for hire include a black-box theatre, a gallery, a dance studio, the Random Room and...
External links
- Singapore Film Commission
- Singapore International Film Festival
- Southeast Asian Cinematheque (formerly Singapore Cinematheque)
- Asian Film Archive
- Singapore Film Society
- OhGenki Movies Singapore
- InCinemas.sg
- Criticine Singapore – Singapore page of Southeast Asian Cinema journal Criticine
- Singapore movie discussion forum
- Sinema.sg