Normally newspapers and magazines give recognition and tribute to Hollywood filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone, etc. However I notice that there is seldom any mention even in our local papers on our homegrown filmmakers like Eric Khoo or Jack Neo. The films they make, albeit on very local settings, may not necessarily lose out to the reputable Hollywood filmmakers.
Take Eric Khoo for example. Making movies is his passion. Being English-educated coupled with family and financial support, he is able to achieve his dream and do something he really loves. His films like “Twelve Stories” and “Be With Me” may be on local context and feature realistic aspects of Singaporeans, ie frustrations of those lower-income people living in two-room flats in a run-down housing estate, teenage crushes and secret admiration, but because his films are more slow-moving and consist of snippets here and there, average heartlanders may not be able to thoroughly appreciate his films.
Jack Neo, on the other hand, gives a frank approach on local current affairs, like the higher-educated people always getting employed and lower-educated getting retrenched no matter how experienced they are, how a career can drive apart a marriage, and how kids who are not too academically-inclined will forever be ostracized.
In a way, his movies strike more to the core of the average heartlanders because those are issues that everyone is facing, be they rich or poor, educated or not educated, adults or kids. Plus the fact that his movies are spattered with more “Singlish” and dialect – the “official language” of the average heartlanders. Despite what the government is trying to do to improve the standards of English among the mainstream, Jack Neo’s movies are still in a class of their own.
Eric Khoo’s “Twelve Stories” featured a group of HDB-dwellers of different backgrounds. There was a middle-aged lady whose mother ostracized her because her own ward, the rich girl whom she used to baby-sit, was so much better than her own daughter in every aspect. There was a fishmonger who had a China wife, but she looked down on him for being poor as she thought she would be marrying someone rich. There were three siblings, where the eldest brother got all protective and overbearing just because he was left in charge when their parents were away. There was a hairdresser who jumped down from the building after a drug overdose. All these people and their lives were entwined in that particular block of two-room flats that had only twelve floors.
Although the entire film featured different stories and different people with different lives, it was as if all these could happen to just one person as these are very common issues among locals. How many parents compare their children to others? How many normal men married China wives, but their wives later felt cheated as they realized the men they married were not as rich as they claimed? (Not saying that all China wives are like that.) How many people died of drug overdose? And how many eldest siblings were overprotective of their younger siblings when left in charge? (Again, not all eldest siblings are like that; I am definitely not like that! In fact, my brothers have to take care of me sometimes! :-p) I am sure one can find at least one case of the above almost everyday.
Jack Neo’s movies featured more societal issues common to almost everyone. His first movie, “Money No Enough”, was on how a family man, who had worked almost twenty years for a company and was supposed to be promoted to a managerial position, yet got upstaged by a young fresh graduate. The new manager started exploiting him, so in a huff, he resigned. He was earning about close to S$3,000.00 in that job.
His wife was angry with him for resigning, but he kept assuring her that he had the experience, thus it would not be a problem to find another job. Unfortunately, he only had ‘O’ levels and could not speak good English, thus all the firms he went for interviews rejected him as they preferred younger and better-educated employees who could speak a certain standard of English.
His second show, “That One No Enough”, was on how a career woman kept putting off having children for the sake of promotion, and her long-suffering husband kept having to be caught in the middle of his wife, who did not want children, and his mother, who yearned for a grandson. His wife started putting in longer and longer hours at work, and kept interrupting their anniversary dinner to take business calls. In the end, her husband started straying due to loneliness and frustration.
She wanted a divorce, but it was her mother-in-law who saved the day by going to her office to talk to her. Her mother-in-law told her to have a kid so that she could tie her husband down, as at least if there was a child, her husband could take care of the kid while she was at work, then he would not have the time to stray. So in the end, she went ahead and got pregnant.
His third show, “I Not Stupid” was more on the stress of primary school streaming and the pressures parents faced when their kids went to a certain stream. It was mainly on a group of EM3 kids. When kids found out that they were streamed to EM3, it was normally a big blow to the parents as EM3 to a lot of people would mean it was the end of the world for them, and the kid would be doomed for life.
Actually EM3 pupils might be more challenging to teach in academic terms, and some could be even better in terms of character than some kids in the EM1 stream. The kids in the EM1 stream were normally brought up by adoring and pampered parents who gave them everything in life, thus some of these kids had never faced failure so they thought the world of themselves.
Kids in the EM3 stream, on the other hand, might not have the family support or background as compared to the more priviledged kids, but some became more street smart and independent, due to being left alone since young, so more mature than the more academically-inclined students.
Anyway the show was on how teachers, schools, parents and even society only gave preference to EM1 students, but totally looked down on EM3 students. Even for assessment books and test papers, those for EM3 students were practically non-existent.
It was as if there was no use printing assessment books and revision papers for EM3 kids as they were thought to be doomed anyway. It did not matter how well-behaved the kid was, or how talented he was in other areas, but as long as he could not handle the mainstream subjects of English, Mathematics and Science, he had to walk the path of “destruction”.
That is the trouble with the local education system. As long as one is not able to handle academic subjects, the poor kid is not able to go anywhere else or do anything else. Not everyone is good academically. There are some others who may be very talented in sports or art or music, but as long as they could not study, all these other talents go unrecognized.
The government may be recognizing sports and arts nowadays, specially setting up the Sports school and the upcoming Arts school to groom these young talents from secondary level onwards, but they still need a certain PSLE grade to enter. It will be so unfair to those kids who have remarkable talent but not able to do well academically.
Jack Neo’s last three shows dealt with the problems of gambling, marriage and reformed prisoners having a second chance. It was on how gambling could make people so obsessive in buying numbers that they neglected everything else, and how people who won the lottery could be in a danger of leading a life so rich that nothing would be enough for them.
The issue of marriage was on how a typical not-as-educated man yearned for a wife, and the woman he fell for was so much higher than him in terms of academic qualifications, career and salary. Needless to say, this woman would want only someone who was higher than her in terms of academic qualifications, career and salary scale, and would not even give the poor guy a chance. In the end, it turned out that what she hoped for might not be the best for her after all.
The issue on reformed prisoners was on how people who got out of jail were normally ostracized by society and could not find any job due to their record. That movie started screening together with the tie-in of the Yellow Ribbon Project, where former prisoners who have been thoroughly reformed could still work and contribute to the society.
These shows strike a chord in me as these are very fundamental issues which are happening all around our local society. Jack Neo is a genius indeed for being able to capture the quintessential problems of our society and make shows out of them in order to reach out to the public.
Take Eric Khoo for example. Making movies is his passion. Being English-educated coupled with family and financial support, he is able to achieve his dream and do something he really loves. His films like “Twelve Stories” and “Be With Me” may be on local context and feature realistic aspects of Singaporeans, ie frustrations of those lower-income people living in two-room flats in a run-down housing estate, teenage crushes and secret admiration, but because his films are more slow-moving and consist of snippets here and there, average heartlanders may not be able to thoroughly appreciate his films.
Jack Neo, on the other hand, gives a frank approach on local current affairs, like the higher-educated people always getting employed and lower-educated getting retrenched no matter how experienced they are, how a career can drive apart a marriage, and how kids who are not too academically-inclined will forever be ostracized.
In a way, his movies strike more to the core of the average heartlanders because those are issues that everyone is facing, be they rich or poor, educated or not educated, adults or kids. Plus the fact that his movies are spattered with more “Singlish” and dialect – the “official language” of the average heartlanders. Despite what the government is trying to do to improve the standards of English among the mainstream, Jack Neo’s movies are still in a class of their own.
Eric Khoo’s “Twelve Stories” featured a group of HDB-dwellers of different backgrounds. There was a middle-aged lady whose mother ostracized her because her own ward, the rich girl whom she used to baby-sit, was so much better than her own daughter in every aspect. There was a fishmonger who had a China wife, but she looked down on him for being poor as she thought she would be marrying someone rich. There were three siblings, where the eldest brother got all protective and overbearing just because he was left in charge when their parents were away. There was a hairdresser who jumped down from the building after a drug overdose. All these people and their lives were entwined in that particular block of two-room flats that had only twelve floors.
Although the entire film featured different stories and different people with different lives, it was as if all these could happen to just one person as these are very common issues among locals. How many parents compare their children to others? How many normal men married China wives, but their wives later felt cheated as they realized the men they married were not as rich as they claimed? (Not saying that all China wives are like that.) How many people died of drug overdose? And how many eldest siblings were overprotective of their younger siblings when left in charge? (Again, not all eldest siblings are like that; I am definitely not like that! In fact, my brothers have to take care of me sometimes! :-p) I am sure one can find at least one case of the above almost everyday.
Jack Neo’s movies featured more societal issues common to almost everyone. His first movie, “Money No Enough”, was on how a family man, who had worked almost twenty years for a company and was supposed to be promoted to a managerial position, yet got upstaged by a young fresh graduate. The new manager started exploiting him, so in a huff, he resigned. He was earning about close to S$3,000.00 in that job.
His wife was angry with him for resigning, but he kept assuring her that he had the experience, thus it would not be a problem to find another job. Unfortunately, he only had ‘O’ levels and could not speak good English, thus all the firms he went for interviews rejected him as they preferred younger and better-educated employees who could speak a certain standard of English.
His second show, “That One No Enough”, was on how a career woman kept putting off having children for the sake of promotion, and her long-suffering husband kept having to be caught in the middle of his wife, who did not want children, and his mother, who yearned for a grandson. His wife started putting in longer and longer hours at work, and kept interrupting their anniversary dinner to take business calls. In the end, her husband started straying due to loneliness and frustration.
She wanted a divorce, but it was her mother-in-law who saved the day by going to her office to talk to her. Her mother-in-law told her to have a kid so that she could tie her husband down, as at least if there was a child, her husband could take care of the kid while she was at work, then he would not have the time to stray. So in the end, she went ahead and got pregnant.
His third show, “I Not Stupid” was more on the stress of primary school streaming and the pressures parents faced when their kids went to a certain stream. It was mainly on a group of EM3 kids. When kids found out that they were streamed to EM3, it was normally a big blow to the parents as EM3 to a lot of people would mean it was the end of the world for them, and the kid would be doomed for life.
Actually EM3 pupils might be more challenging to teach in academic terms, and some could be even better in terms of character than some kids in the EM1 stream. The kids in the EM1 stream were normally brought up by adoring and pampered parents who gave them everything in life, thus some of these kids had never faced failure so they thought the world of themselves.
Kids in the EM3 stream, on the other hand, might not have the family support or background as compared to the more priviledged kids, but some became more street smart and independent, due to being left alone since young, so more mature than the more academically-inclined students.
Anyway the show was on how teachers, schools, parents and even society only gave preference to EM1 students, but totally looked down on EM3 students. Even for assessment books and test papers, those for EM3 students were practically non-existent.
It was as if there was no use printing assessment books and revision papers for EM3 kids as they were thought to be doomed anyway. It did not matter how well-behaved the kid was, or how talented he was in other areas, but as long as he could not handle the mainstream subjects of English, Mathematics and Science, he had to walk the path of “destruction”.
That is the trouble with the local education system. As long as one is not able to handle academic subjects, the poor kid is not able to go anywhere else or do anything else. Not everyone is good academically. There are some others who may be very talented in sports or art or music, but as long as they could not study, all these other talents go unrecognized.
The government may be recognizing sports and arts nowadays, specially setting up the Sports school and the upcoming Arts school to groom these young talents from secondary level onwards, but they still need a certain PSLE grade to enter. It will be so unfair to those kids who have remarkable talent but not able to do well academically.
Jack Neo’s last three shows dealt with the problems of gambling, marriage and reformed prisoners having a second chance. It was on how gambling could make people so obsessive in buying numbers that they neglected everything else, and how people who won the lottery could be in a danger of leading a life so rich that nothing would be enough for them.
The issue of marriage was on how a typical not-as-educated man yearned for a wife, and the woman he fell for was so much higher than him in terms of academic qualifications, career and salary. Needless to say, this woman would want only someone who was higher than her in terms of academic qualifications, career and salary scale, and would not even give the poor guy a chance. In the end, it turned out that what she hoped for might not be the best for her after all.
The issue on reformed prisoners was on how people who got out of jail were normally ostracized by society and could not find any job due to their record. That movie started screening together with the tie-in of the Yellow Ribbon Project, where former prisoners who have been thoroughly reformed could still work and contribute to the society.
These shows strike a chord in me as these are very fundamental issues which are happening all around our local society. Jack Neo is a genius indeed for being able to capture the quintessential problems of our society and make shows out of them in order to reach out to the public.
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