Today , it was post -promo activity . We had gone to watch the Singapore Dreaming in Plaza Singapura. The show was pretty good. A though - provoking movie with much inference to our lives in Singapore. Enjoy the movie review write-up. And , maybe can give a thought to the bolded words.
A review done by a student but not me.
Work. Dreams. Will we ever be able to have both at the same time? Do we work to earn money to fulfill our dreams, or do we work to earn money because we have given up on our dreams?
This weekend, I watched a truly realistic film that I could identify with:
Singapore Dreaming (2006)
As you could probably infer, this is a local film. Written and directed by TalkingCock.com founder Colin Goh and his wife Woo Yen Yen, Singapore Dreaming has all the elements of a made-in-SG production: familiar street scenes featuring prominent landmarks (the Esplanade, the Merlion, Orchard Road etc, added probably as a STB-type promo of our country to appeal to foreign film festivals), heartlander accents of Singlish, Mandarin and Hokkien… but it is also much more than that.
The story revolves around a typical Singaporean family that lives in the HDB heartlands (Lorong 1 Toa Payoh, to be precise). Let’s meet the members of the Loh family…
This is Loh Poh Huat (Richard Low), a lawyer’s clerk. Hokkien-speaking, uncouth and extremely rude to his wife, he favours his son over his daughter and has a lifelong dream of striking Toto and buying a condominium. However, he will soon come to realise that besides coveting the 5Cs (car, cash, condo, credit card, country club), there is a 6th C that will override the previous five Cs.
Poh Huat’s wife (Alice Lim) is the quintessential HDB auntie who spends all day marketing, cooking and cleaning. She has a fascination with cooking herbal tea that noone in the house seems to drink D: Uneducated academically but wise and strong, she provides the powerful ending to the movie. 
The story starts off with the return of Poh Huat’s son Seng (Dick Su) from his studies in the States. Faced with immense pressure from his family to use his overseas degree to earn lots of money to repay his dad as well as to marry girlfriend Irene (Serene Chen), things start to unravel rather quickly for him. 
Rounding up the family portrait are Poh Huat’s pregnant daughter Mei (a wonderfully multilingual Yeo Yann Yann), and her insurance agent husband C.K (Lim Yu Beng). Struggling to make ends meet (he does not have a stable income), they somehow still hold on to luxuries like having a maid and driving a car. How typically Singaporean.
Anyway, the film is chockful of scenes we, as Singaporeans, can identify with. Sure there are cliches galore, but what makes everything watchable and intensely laughable (even the supposedly sad scenes) is precisely how everything is so familiar. Which one of us doesn’t have parents who pins their hopes on us, or wants us to get a good job so they can retire and enjoy life? Or a loved one who spends his whole time complaining about his current situation and daydreams about “one day when I strike Toto ah…” ?
I also like how the tone was never overly preachy. The general theme was the importance of family ties and trust, but the cop-out happy 皆大欢喜 ending you’d expect from, like, a Jack Neo movie (oops) never comes.
Acting from the cast members was quite impressive all around… special mention must go out to Yeo Yann Yann, whose portrayal of a mother-to-be with so many worries and disappointments in her life but still manages to keep going is simply enthralling. Do watch out for the scene where she has a verbal bust-up with Seng; it’s more powerful than any action movie fight scene you could possibly imagine.
Do bring your family along for this one. I won’t say that I’ve learnt any lessons after watching Singapore Dreaming, but it did make me think about my own relationships with my family, as well as my own hopes and dreams. Support local production okay?
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
threw her kisses ;9:12 PM
