Singapore
The other week I watched The Breaking Ice (2023) at a film festival, Singapore’s nomination to the next Academy Awards. It is not set or shot in Singapore, but among a community of Chinese with Korean ancestry in the northeast of China, but its writer/director is Anthony Chen and that is the Singapore connection. Chen is one of few Singapore directors with some kind of global recognition and his earlier film Ilo Ilo (2013) won the Camera d’or at the Cannes film festival. I like both these films, although Ilo Ilo is the superior one. Chen has made two other films, but I have not seen them yet.
Singapore has long occupied an outsized space in my consciousness. I have been there, but it is now 20 years ago, and its allure is older than that. I do not know when it first made its appearance in my mind as a place I should explore, but it has never left. I sometimes fantasise about moving there, at least for a year or so, and live and work there to get a deeper feel of the place. Until then, books and films are sustaining me. Even the reality show Singapore Social (2019) on Netflix, despite me generally not bothering with such shows, is one I genuinely like.1 I am naturally interested in Singapore’s film history as well and what follows are some aspects of it.
Singapore is a new state, or city-state, having become self-sufficient and independent in 1965. The place has been a trade port for centuries, a global space, under the jurisdiction of several different empires, Siamese, Javanese, Malayan, Indian, Dutch, British, and also occupied by Japan during World War 2. Its present form was created by the British during the 19th century, beginning with Stamford Raffles’s successful negotiation with the then ruling potentate to take charge of it in 1819. It became a destination for emigrants from all over the region, as well as China and Europe. Singapore became a British crown colony in 1867, gained partial self-rule in 1953 and independence in 1959. After a few years it merged with Malaya, as The Federation of Malaysia. That did not pan out and consequently they went their separate ways in 1965. Since then, Singapore has become one of the most prosperous and cosmopolitan places in the world, with high living standards, excellent infrastructure and health care, an impressive system of public housing, and such. It is also famous for having some very harsh laws, not least surrounding drugs, and being sued for defamation is common if you criticise the government, controlled ever since 1959 by the People’s Action Party (PAP). There are elections, which PAP always wins, as it is not a fair fight. Lately PAP have decreased their share of the votes and the opposition made gains, but as a democracy Singapore does not rate as highly as its living standards. (Freedom House rate it as partly free.2)
Its political history is reflected in its cinema history. To quote Edna Lim, film scholar at National University of Singapore, “The island’s multiple reinventions, from a transnational port polity with a cosmopolitan population to an independent, multicultural nation that is still externally oriented, also reflect the rather fractured history of film production in Singapore comprising three distinct periods: a golden age in the 1950s and 1960s, a post-studio era in the 1970s and revival in the 1990s.”3
Few films were made in Singapore until after World War 2. More films might have been made in Hollywood with Singapore in the title than were actually made in Singapore during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.4 Things changed after the war. From 1947 until the early 1970s, the cinema was dominated by Malay-language films. These were primarily made by a studio founded by two brothers from the famous Chinese family Shaw. They began their film business in Shanghai in 1924 and two of the six Shaw brothers, Runme Shaw and Run Run Shaw, moved to Singapore in the 1920s and started the Shaw Organisation. For the first 20 years they were only distributing and exhibiting films, as well as building entertainment parks with food halls, cabarets, operas, and other offerings side by side with the cinema.
But in 1947 the Shaw brothers started Malay Film Productions (MFP) and combined their already well-established film distribution and exhibition with film production in a vertically integrated company. Their most important director was first B.S. Rajhans, a Punjabi born in Kolkata. Chinta (1948) is among his successes, and is alleged to be the oldest surviving Malay-language film, although I do not know if this is true. Rajhans was later superseded by the star of Chinta, the Malay P. Ramlee, who began as an actor and a singer, and became a major filmmaker. Among Ramlee’s more famous films as director are Pendekar Bujang Lapok (1958) and Seniman Bujang Lapok (1961, available to watch here).
There was also another production company, Cathay-Keris, founded in 1953. Together they and the Shaw brothers’ MFP made around 250 Malay-language films in Singapore. The Shaw brothers also had hundreds of cinemas all over Southeast Asia. It was an international affair, and a peculiar arrangement where a Chinese company, using Indian, Chinese, Filipino, and Malay directors, made films in Malay for a primarily Malayan audience.
Other notable films from this era are Lion City (1960) and Raja Bersiong/King with the Fangs (1967). Something else that must be mentioned were the very successful films based on the Southeast Asian folk horror myth of the Pontianak, also known as Kuntilanak (in Indonesia) or langsuyar, a creature that often takes the form of a vampire-like female spirit. The first of these films, Pontianak (1957, now considered lost), was made by B.N Rao, an Indian director working for Cathay-Keris, and with Maria Menado in the lead. It was followed by many sequels, made by both Cathay-Keris and MFP. Several were also made in Indonesia, and new versions still appear.
In the late 1960s MFP stopped making films in Singapore, after Singapore and Malaysia went their separate ways, and soon Cathay-Keris also ceased business. The two Shaw brothers in Singapore moved to Hong Kong and joined their other brothers there, which had started the company Shaw Brothers in 1961. They increased their cinema empire and their fame when they began to mass-produce films in Hong Kong. Their Singapore-produced films have not had much global impact (they are hardly known outside Malaysia today) in marked contrast to their later Hong Kong-produced films, like Come Drink with Me (1966), Five Fingers of Death aka King Boxer (1973), or The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978). In general, while the cinema of Hong Kong really took off, the cinema of Singapore came to a standstill. Hardly any films were made in Singapore from the early 1970s until the mid-1990s. I know two, They Call Her…Cleopatra Wong (1978) and Saint Jack (1979), but the first is a Southeast Asian co-production and the latter an American independent production, set and shot entirely in Singapore. They Call Her … Cleopatra Wong is, as the title suggests, inspired by American blaxploitation cinema (and nunsploitation) and about a top agent, played by Marrie Lee, trying to capture a band of counterfeiters. They Call Her…Cleopatra Wong is pretty bad, but I recommend it just the same. It obviously has a cult following, with lots of merch associated with it for those who like such things.
Saint Jack, about the unlikely friendship between Jack Flowers, a lowlife hustler played by Ben Gazzara, and an English accountant played by Denholm Elliott, is a wonderful film, based on a novel by Paul Theroux and directed by Peter Bogdanovich. (It is my favourite in Bogdanovich’s oeuvre.) Whether to include Saint Jack in a discussion about Singaporean cinema is something many have wrestled with. It was not financed by Singapore, and the director and the main characters are not from Singapore. Yet at the same time a lot of cast and crew are locals, and the film is definitely about Singapore. The city-state is not only a background, and it is a unique capture of a bygone era. To again quote Edna Lim: “There is a primacy to its performance of Singapore that makes Singapore not merely a location but a character in the film /…/ This is not a film that could have been made anywhere else. Saint Jack is as much about Jack as it is also about a Singapore that was changing and disappearing.”5 In addition, is not the international, or transnational, or crossnational, or whatever you want to call it, aspect a defining feature of Singaporean cinema?
But despite the odd film here and there in the 1970s and 1980s, after Singapore gained its independence, and the Malay-language cinema departed, it would take almost 30 years until a new national cinema emerged. This time it would be a predominantly Chinese-language cinema, as the majority of the citizens of Singapore are of Chinese ethnicity, and frequently realistic films about social issues. Particularly important for this rebirth has been the writer/director Eric Khoo, whose first feature, Mee Pok Man (2005), is often considered the breakthrough of this new Singaporean cinema. Khoo followed it with 12 Storeys (2007), which was screened at the Cannes film festival, a first for Singapore. Khoo also produced several other important films during those years, both locally successful comedies and more art house films such as the fine 4.30 (2006) by another important filmmaker, Royston Tan. Later Khoo wrote and directed Be with Me (2005) and My Magic (2008, unusually it is a Tamil-language film), both of which were successful at international film festivals.
In 12 Storeys, one of the characters is played by Jack Neo. Famous from his television performances, Neo would then become a filmmaker himself, making highly successful comedies, often satirising Singapore society. The first was That One No Enough (1999).6
One film I am curious about but have not seen is Perth (2004), and I would like to explore more of the documentary films of Tan Pin Pin. She was also part of the revival of Singapore cinema in the mid-1990s and has been making films regularly since, with famous titles being Singapore Gaga (2005) and Invisible City (2007). Her later film To Singapore, With Love (2013) was considered so sensitive, politically, that it was banned by the local authorities. (But you can watch it here.)
There are a couple of reasons for why Singapore cinema interests me, and one is the national aspect. Can such a mixed and international place even have a national cinema, and what does it mean to talk about national cinema? Are the Malay-language films from 1947 to 1970-ish part of the national cinema of Singapore or of Malaysia, or both? Does it matter?
According to the excellent book Singapore Cinema (2006), 310 films were made in Singapore until 1969, and 62 from 1970 until 2005, the year before the book was published. On IMDb, there are 591 feature films listed with Singapore as country of origin, including documentaries.7 If you consider that many films are lost or unavailable, you should be able to watch all remaining titles within a year. That is a tempting thought. Unless you want to do that, at least watch Ilo Ilo. Another good one I have not mentioned is A Land Imagined (2018), a quiet, dreamlike drama written and directed by Yeo Siew Hua. It is about a cop searching for a missing person and is focused on the plight of the many guest workers in Singapore. It should be available to stream. Something older you might like is the documentary Singapore, My Singapore from 1967, or perhaps 1968, about the passing of the old Singapore and the emerging new, available here.
If you want to read more about Singaporean cinema, here are some books:
The one I just mentioned above, Singapore Cinema by Raphaël Millet, is a beautifully illustrated and well-researched book about the whole of Singaporean cinema. Celluloid Singapore - Cinema, Performance and the National (2018), by Edna Lim, and Singapore Cinema - New Perspective (2017, edited by Liew Kai Khiun and Stephen Teo, are more academic books and of value for those who want to get more perspectives. I can also recommend the edited collection China Forever - The Shaw Brothers and Diasporic Cinema (2008). For the Malaysian angle there is Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film - Border Crossings and National Cultures (2002), by William Van der Heide.
Another book I must recommend is Kinda Hot (2006) by Ben Slater, a filmmaker, writer, and lecturer at Nanyang Technological University. The book is about the making of Saint Jack and hard to find, Ben was kind enough to personally send me a copy, but if you find it, read it.
At first, I was a bit hesitant but then I decided to regard it as fiction and my hesitations melted away. The characters in it are not extreme or ridiculous but fairly normal and sensible. It obviously suffered a severe backlash in Singapore, as it does not portray the lives of “real” Singaporeans, but artists, models, and entrepreneurs. Such criticisms are always confusing to me because nothing will ever be able to portray a country, even a small one like Singapore, in its entirety, and presumably no one watching Singapore Social, to the extent that anyone but me did, believes that this is how all citizens in Singapore live. And at the same time, those who appear in the series are also real people, just as much as anyone else. Being poor does not make you more real.
Edna Lim (2018), Celluloid Singapore- Cinema, Performance and the National, p. 2
These include The Singapore Mutiny (1928, directed by Ralph Ince, the younger brother of the considerably more famous filmmaker Thomas Ince); Singapore Sue (1933), of little quality but with an early performance by Cary Grant; Road to Singapore (1940), one of the Dorothy Lamour-Bob Hope-Bing Crosby fantasy-comedies; Singapore Woman (1941), the first film Jean Negulesco directed on his own; and John Brahm’s very atmospheric Singapore (1947).
Edna Lim (2018), p. 117
Playing with languages, including the local version of English, Singlish, is part of Neo’s comedy.