One
of the things we struggled with in reviewing films in the past was that we were
writing a review of a film no one knew how to get their hands on. Something
seismic just happened in Singapore last week. Starting 1 August 2020, through a
combined gesture by three media companies, Clover Films, mm2 Entertainment and
Mediacorp, more than 100 classic Singapore films and TV series shed their
elusiveness and were made available for viewing on Netflix. We believe this
will engage a good combination of film watchers, fan boys and girls of specific
personalities and nostalgia geeks. And what a good chance for some of our
reviews to be ‘repurposed’ too.
But it does not end there. Here is another
bullet for the ‘stay-at-home’ cause. When you are done with these classics, a
brave new world awaits you with a more recent, more accessible and more gilded
set of Singapore or Singapore-made content online. As Singapore celebrates its
independence day in August, there is no better way to get into the mood and
embrace the contemporary Singapore identity by simply watching these films and
series from the palm of your hand. Let us give you a guide!
Food Lore
<5-word summary of the show: Eat Cry Man Woman
Available on HBO GO and HBO
Watch this at: https://www.hbogoasia.sg/#series/sr388
Let’s start with the
lowest common denominator – food! Food content caters to the most fatigued
minds. This is the territory of clichés but no one ever gets tired of another
morsel of food drama. Food Lore is the brainchild of filmmaker Eric Khoo
who himself has been on a roll with gastronomically-themed dramas such as Ramen
Teh and Wanton Mee. This is an eight-part series that will stir your
hearts while the actors stir the sauce. Eight filmmakers including Erik
Matti (the Philippines), Phan Dang Di (Vietnam), Billy Christian (Indonesia),
Don Aravind (Singapore), Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (Thailand), Takumi Saitoh (Japan),
Ho Yuhang (Malaysia), and Eric Khoo himself, introduce some truly exotic eats
framed in all kinds of love from the motherly type to the sexy type. And the
stories reflect a certain parallel between food and human beings – we start off
with entrenched biases, but once we taste something we like, we want to eat up
every part of it. Wink.
The film’s episodes have screened at various film festivals
with A Plate of Moon & Maria’s
Secret Recipe screened at Seriencamp Film Festival 2019, Island of Dreams & He Serves Fish, She Eats Flower
screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2019.
Wild City
<5-word summary of the show: Wild otters and others
Watch this at: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/video-on-demand/wild-city
There are otter videos
aplenty online but the mother of all otter videos can be found in a Channel
NewsAsia documentary series named Wild City. The series features these
twitchy and adorable creatures in HD coupled with nature’s favourite guest
voice - Sir
David Attenborough. The novelty in this series is really being able to take
stock of what’s left of wildlife in an increasing urbanised Singapore. After
all, the government believes love can be made in small spaces, so wildlife has
found ways to thrive. Otters aside, some of the more fascinating animal portraits
in the documentary include the Raffles’ banded langur, one of the least-known
primates on the planet, banded bullfrogs, dog-faced water snakes, maroon
macaques and creepy crawlies of course. Do you know almost 30,000 species of
animals call Singapore home? That’s enough drama to last more than a Covid
year.
Wild City won the Silver World Medal
at New York Festivals 2017 and Best Documentary at Asian TV Awards 2016.
Pop Aye
<5-word summary of the show: Taking home an elephant.
Tough!
Watch this at:
https://www.amazon.com/Pop-Aye-Thaneth-Warakulnukroh/dp/B074TQFF5N
https://video.toggle.sg/en/video/movies/pop-aye/799337
Still on beasts, Pop Aye
is animal porn, road movie, art house sensibilities and some playful kitsch
rolled into one. Helmed by an elephant, Pop Aye tells the story of Thana
who is experiencing diminishing relevance in his profession as an architect,
and even in his position as a husband at home with his wife secretly using a
vibrator. So, he finds friendship in an elephant he notices on the streets in
Bangkok, which he is convinced is Pop Aye, his childhood companion in the
family farm. He buys over Pop Aye and they begin an endearing and affecting
road trip back to his village. During the journey, the curveballs they face and
the characters they meet, such a haggard hippie and an ageing transgender
singer, are not quite fairy tale, but the moments of earnestness and genuine
affections take us to Disneyland.
The film won the World
Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Screenwriting at 27th Sundance Film Festival
2017 and also the VPRO Big Screen Award at 46th International Film
Festival Rotterdam 2017.
Lion Mums
<5-word summary of the show: These mums are so scary!
Watch this at:
S1: https://tv.toggle.sg/en/shows/li/lion-moms-tif/episodes?page=2
S2: https://video.toggle.sg/en/video/series/lion-mums-s2/ep2/523309
S3: https://video.toggle.sg/en/video/series/lion-mums-s3/ep1/788810
There is one scene in this
drama series that has become fodder for a recent post-general election parody.
Actress Lina Ng, playing Chae Lian, confronts her screen daughter about messing
up in school and her daughter retorts. In the parody video, the daughter
represents the voice of the oppressed (supposedly Singaporeans) and Chae Lian
is the voice of the whiter-than-white authorities. Of course, expect more
familiar struggles of adolescence, child-raising, paper-chasing and rat-racing
in this series. Lion Mums is an interesting study of three very different
mothers who share the same goals of wanting the best for their children, while
committing different degrees of mothering overkill in their own unique ways.
Min Yi is a COO and a single mother who is eager to climb up the corporate
ladder but struggles to make enough time for her children. Chae Lian plays the
familiar domineering ‘Tiger Mum’ who tries too hard. Durrani is a mum who seems
to have all the stars in her life aligned from career to love to family, but in
reality finds it challenging to be a juggler.
This series won a couple of
awards including the Bronze Award Medal for Best Direction for New York
Festivals 2018, Best Direction (Fiction) for Asian Academy Awards 2018 and was
nominated Best Drama Series for Seoul International Drama Awards 2018.
Oddbods
<5-word summary of the show: Rainbow onesie furballs
who grunt
Watch this at https://www.netflix.com/sg/title/81031037
Furry characters, each in
a different primary colour make up Oddbods, an animation series about
turning your own oddities into strength! Seven characters, Fuse, Pogo, Newt,
Bubbles, Slick, Zee and Jeff, make up the Oddbods who, when lined up in a row,
form a politically-correct rainbow (for six colours would have started a
culture war). In the different episodes, these naughtier versions of
Teletubbies face all kinds of situations, perils and even pranks played on them,
and they always manage to find a way to flip these situations around for fun
and humour. The series has a tagline: "Embrace Your Inner Odd, There's a
Little Odd in Everyone!" And be warned, they speak fluently in grunts,
moans, giggles and squeals.
The series was nominated for
the Magnolia Award (Animation) at 24th Shanghai TV Festival
2018, Best Animated Series at Kidscreen Awards 2018 and the Kids Animation category
at the 2017 and 2018 International Emmy Awards.
Ilo Ilo
<5-word summary of the show: A maid-in-Singapore friendship
Watch this at:
https://video.toggle.sg/en/video/movies/ilo-ilo/794507
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/ilo-ilo/id899256213
This film needs little
introduction. Terry, a domestic helper from the Philippines gets hired into a
typical Singaporean family of HDB dwellers. She unwittingly forges a bond with
the child Jia Ler and his mother is not having it. Then the economic crisis
hits (what a familiar feeling) and Terry has to go. The film’s impeccable artistic
achievement in every department leaves little to be commented on. And ICYMI,
Yeo Yann Yann, who played the mother, actually delivered her real baby for the
camera. You need to watch till the end
of the film to see that. Talk about conviction!
Ilo Ilo was awarded the Caméra d’Or
at 66th Cannes Film Festival 2013 and later that year, it scored a
major coup at the 50th Taipei Golden Horse Awards by winning Best Film, Best New
Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Yeo Yann Yann).
A Land Imagined
<5-word summary of the show: Everybody sleepwalks
Watch this at: https://www.netflix.com/sg/title/81041391
A Land Imagined by Chris Yeo was the
antidote to the socio-cultural hijacking of Singapore by Hollywood that was Crazy
Rich Asians in the year 2018. It told the world poor, working-class people
also existed in Singapore. Having said that, this film is not all a sob-fest
but more an exercise of narrative hypnosis. Lok is a jaded police inspector,
played by Peter Yu, who sets out to investigate the case of a missing foreign
construction worker named Wang. And while he is at it, we see Wang’s story
seemingly played out in an alternate universe, in which he frequents an
internet café where he meets its mysterious female storekeeper. One of the
film’s most insane moments is a cinematic conversion of the popular game
Counter-Strike de_dust2.
This film together with Ilo
Ilo are among the most awarded Singapore films in history. It won the
Golden Leopard at 71st Locarno Film Festival 2018, Best Film at 29th Singapore
International Film Festival 2018 and Best Original Screenplay and Best Original
Score at 56th Taipei Golden Horse Awards 2019.
A Yellow Bird
<5-word summary of the show: Yellow Ribbon gets knotty
Watch this at: https://www.netflix.com/sg/title/80115133
Director K Rajagopal said
that the film’s title came from his mother who once told him that if you see a
yellow bird, you will be very lucky. In considerable irony, the film is about
one very unlucky ex-convict whose ‘yellow ribbon’ journey post-prison is saddled
with obstacles and people ghosting on him. The film offers a peek into a realm
whitewashed from the eyes of the average Singaporean – the underbelly. It’s a
dog’s life in there but there are moments of poetry, unrecognisable terrain in
Singapore and skinny dipping (yes!). Quite a surreal cinematic escape really!
A Yellow Bird was screened under the Official Selection at Semaine De La Critique 69th Cannes Film Festival 2016.
Invisible Stories
<5-word summary of the show: Ghetto Tales we sometimes
know
Watch this here: https://www.mewatch.sg/en/series/invisible-stories-s1/ep1/872163
We continue with underbelly tales in Invisible Stories.
Rice media calls this ‘The Best Singapore TV Show you will never watch’. Well,
we are urging you to do the opposite just to prove their article wrong (for a
good cause of obviously). The brainchild of the director of TV series Code
of Law, Ler Jiyuan, Invisible Stories is a six-part drama series which
features socially-disadvantaged lives including a single mother, an autistic
boy, a taxi driver moonlighting as a medium, a domestic helper, sex workers and
an influencer…..wait a minute, Ler should have just named this ’12 Storeys
Upgraded’.
The series features a diverse cast from the Southeast Asia region,
including Taiwan’s Devin Pan (Floating Flowers In The Wind), Thailand’s Suchada
Muller (Insects In The Backyard), Malaysia’s Gavin Yap (The Bridge), Bangladesh’s
Sudip Biswas (Sutopar Thikana), Indonesia’s Sekar Sari (Siti) and Singapore’s Yeo
Yann Yann and Wang Yu Qing.
Apprentice
<5-word summary of the show: Scariest job in the world
Watch this at: https://www.amazon.com/Apprentice-Firdaus-Rahman/dp/B07228KRL5
We highly recommend you
watch this film with a box of popcorn. No other film in Singapore comes close
to its ability to thrill and play with your mind. And when it gets too
chilling, chew on some popcorn. About a new apprentice asked to learn the ropes
(pardon the pun!) of executing death row prisoners, Apprentice tends to
get under your skin a lot with its scrutiny of the execution process, framed in
human drama. Based on the book ‘Once a Jolly Hangman’ by Alan Shadrake about
Singapore’s longest serving chief executioner Darshan Singh, the film with its
religiously accurate references, will paralyse you with fear.
This film has travelled to
more than 60 film festivals worldwide include the 69th Cannes Film Festival
2016 under the Official Selection for Un Certain Regard section, the 21st Busan International
Film Festival 2016 and the 41st Toronto International
Film Festival 2016.
Folklore (PG13)
<5-word summary of the show: Scary Witch Asians
Watch this
at: https://www.hbogoasia.sg/#series/sr331
In Folklore, filmmaker
Eric Khoo rehashes an age-old formula – ghost stories anthology, but with a
slight twist - every story must be based on an ethnic folk tale. Like Food
Lore, this HBO anthology comes in easily consumable form familiar to the
streaming platform fans – horror stories in six different flavours, each from a
different country, and all Asian (which gives it extra spice). Some of the
standout episodes include A Mother’s Love by Joko Anwar, in which a
mother and son bump into a pack of creepy abandoned children and their creepier
non-human mother; Mongdal about a mother struggling to keep up with a psychotic
son who needs to kill a virgin to keep his sanity; and Toyol, a partly satirical
film about a politician who seeks help from a beautiful shaman, who is later
known to mother a demon child. IKR….mothers are the secret ingredient to good
horror!
A couple of the episodes found an audience at several international film festivals including A Mother’s Love & Pob at the Toronto International Film Festival 2018, Tatami & Nobody at the 51st Sitges – International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia 2018, and Toyol & Mongdal at Fantastic Fest 2018.