At the start of 2013, local production houses were preparing to pitch as many as 16 Singapore films to mainstream cinema operators. If all of them had been taken up, that would have been a slight rise on the dozen that reached the screens in 2012. The slate leaned on familiar formulas, with horror and broad comedy well represented. A few film-makers were trying something different.
That is the year’s story in short: a healthy number of local titles, a handful of commercial heavyweights, and a few quieter bets on new faces and new settings.
The commercial heavyweights
The biggest name was Ah Boys to Men II, the second half of Jack Neo’s National Service comedy. The first film, released in November 2012, set a local record, and the sequel went on to overtake it. It is now the highest-grossing Singaporean film of all time. Neo said before release that the sequel would move away from the story of the reluctant recruit Ken, played by Joshua Tan. It would become more of an ensemble comedy around the rest of the platoon.
The Wedding Diary also returned. The Wedding Diary II followed the couple Weijie and Zhixin, played by A-niu and Elanne Kwong. The film was a Singapore–Malaysia production. It was chosen as the closing premiere of the ScreenSingapore market in 2012. Its backers included Golden Screen Cinemas and Asia Tropical Films, which reflected a growing trend of companies north of the Causeway getting involved. Regional cable channels such as Fox International Channels and Star Chinese Movies also invested, hoping to add original content to their libraries.
Early in the year came Taxi! Taxi!, an odd-couple comedy. Gurmit Singh played a mild-mannered professor turned cabby, and Mark Lee played his cab-driving mentor. It was Singh’s first starring film role since PCK The Movie in 2010. The role asked him to drop the exaggerated manner of his Phua Chu Kang character. The story was inspired by the real-life accounts of a taxi driver and blogger, Dr Cai Mingjie, in his bestselling book.
Horror, still a staple
Horror was lighter than the year before. In 2012 there had been three local films with “ghost” in the title, but only one carried the word in 2013.
- Ghost Child, previously titled Inside The Urn, was directed by Gilbert Chan. His earlier film 23:59 (2011) had been a hit. The scares came from the toyol, an imp-like figure from regional folklore. The story follows a teenager, Kim, who struggles after her mother’s death and then has to deal with a new stepmother. It was due to open in March 2013.
- Afterimages, from Tony Kern, the director of Haunted Changi (2010), was a horror compendium targeted for August 2013. A group of film students receive footage from the underworld. The shorts make up four of the stories, and the fifth deals with the aftermath.
- Red Numbers, directed by Dominic Ow, was listed for 22 February 2013.
Growing-up stories and bigger ambitions
Two coming-of-age films showed that mainstream local cinema was not only about ghouls and slapstick.
That Girl In Pinafore came from Chai Yee Wei, who had made his name in horror with Blood Ties (2009) and Twisted (2011). It was set in the 1990s heyday of the xinyao folk-music movement and followed four teenagers. Rather than rely on the small circle of bankable names, Chai cast relatively unknown actors, among them Julie Tan and Jayley Woo. The synopsis also hinted at themes outside the norm for youth dramas, including teen pregnancy. No release date had been confirmed at the time. Chai was also linked with Menstrual Man, a documentary about menstrual pads for the poor. The film was on the same ScreenSingapore list of 13 titles.
3 Peas in a Pod was the second feature from Michelle Chong, who had made Already Famous in 2011. She had first become known for the goofy characters she played on the satirical show The Noose. The film was mostly in English and shot largely in Australia. It followed three university friends who take a road trip before graduating. Chong hoped to release it in Korea and the United States as well as Singapore and the region. With that in mind she cast Calvin Chen of the Taiwanese boyband Fahrenheit and Alexander Lee Eusebio, formerly of the South Korean group U-Kiss. Jae Liew made her acting debut in the female lead. The film was released in November 2013.
The risk of a “bit of everything” film
Pan-Asian packaging did not have a good record. In 2012, two multi-national films with Singaporean participation tried to please everyone. These were the action-horror Dead Mine and the shark film Bait 3D, and both ended up on critics’ worst-of lists. Chong’s film was a bigger gamble than it sounded, and its geographically indeterminate feel could sit awkwardly with local audiences.
The wider picture was encouraging all the same. A slate of around a dozen local films each year, after the slump of 2009 when only six reached cinemas, suggested the market had recovered from the financial-crisis jitters of 2008.
The full ScreenSingapore list
The list of 13 new films announced at ScreenSingapore in 2012 comprised The Wedding Diary II, Ah Boys to Men II, That Girl in Pinafore, Ghost Child, Mister John, Menstrual Man, Taxi Taxi, Wa is for Wayang, 3 Peas in a Pod, Afterimages, 3.50, Red Numbers and Pickles.