Bursts of warped creativity punctuate this rather inscrutable Singaporean experimental drama about the discomfiting nature of personal fantasies and quiet acceptance in matters of life and death.
Continue reading →
Bursts of warped creativity punctuate this rather inscrutable Singaporean experimental drama about the discomfiting nature of personal fantasies and quiet acceptance in matters of life and death.
Tong’s long-gestating new film is a work of poise, as much a lament for the ‘lost’ Chinese-educated generation who found difficulty existing in English-prioritised Singapore in the late ‘70s, as it is a pining for simpler times and simpler truths.
The hopes of transcending their abject youth emanate from the trio of well-realised characters in Chen’s assured fourth feature, set and shot in far-flung Northeast China.
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.