Even when it falls back into a kind of televisual style, Kwek’s work is always engaging as it tackles the thorny local LGBT issue with a kind of reactionary bite that is rare in Singapore cinema.
Meditative yet at times tonally dissonant, Liao’s work about the shifting temporalities of identity and memory is ultimately elusive.
A promising and polished debut feature, this Singapore-Korean co-production has earnestness in abundance even if the storytelling doesn’t quite offer anything markedly revelatory.
This companion piece to ‘881’ is the lesser of the two – craft-wise it is pretty good, but characterisations are much less convincing here.
One of the most crowd-pleasing Singaporean films of the 2000s, Royston Tan’s getai movie is both riotously funny and a tearjerking melodrama.
Royston Tan’s latest would make a strong double-bill with Kiarostami’s ’24 Frames’—a provocative and clever meditation on the ephemerality of mortal existence as captured through the meta-fictivity of his cinema.
This heartfelt, partially-animated documentary centering on a Japanese man who lost his wife in the 2011 tsunami doesn’t have any pretensions and works because of its sincerity.
As a wacky satire on Singaporeans’ pursuit of (a regulated kind of) happiness, this genial comedy might just as well be science-fiction—or not.
Authentically depicting the academic struggles of several students from the Normal Technical stream in a Singapore neighbourhood school, this illuminating documentary is a must-watch for teachers, students and parents hoping for a pedagogical way forward.
Eternality Tan 