(1) Studio system of Shaw and
Cathay (1930s to the 1960s) which made over 250 films in the Malay
language.
(2) Independent productions of the
1970s, which made less than 10 films in Mandarin and English during
that decade, and then soon collapsed, so no films were made at all in
the 1980s.
(3) Revival of the 1990s with
independent film production.
THE GOLDEN DAYS
OF CINEMA
IN
Just as the studio system provided the institutional background for
the
golden days of
In
1. These studio houses owned production lots (Shaw had Malay Film
Productions -
MFP at Jalan Ampas
and
Cathay Keris had its production lot at Jalan Keris on the
east coast).
2. They had their own stable of actors who worked only with them (eg P. Ramlee only
worked with
Shaw, not
3. The studios owned their own cinemas in which they showed their own
films, as
well as the
4. These studios functioned as complete creative units, in which their
films
could not be attributed just to the effort of one individual, such as a
director. Quite often there were Chinese producers working with Indian
directors
and camera crew filming Malay actors. However, there was no strict
division of labour. The most talented
director was Hussein Haniff who worked for
Cathay Keris,
but the multi-talented P. Ramlee combined
acting,
directing, and singing.
5. The individuals who ran the studio houses resembled the powerful,
eccentric,
and creative characters who ran the studios
of
The Rise and Fall
(and Recent Revival) of Cinema in
1930s Shaw Brothers and
1933 According to Cathay: 55 Years of Cinema, Laila
Majnun, about a pair of ill-fated
lovers in the
Middle East, was the first feature film to be made in
1935 Shaw Brothers began making Chinese films in
1942-1945 The Japanese used Shaw Brothers Studios to make propaganda
films.
1947 Shaw Brothers set up Malay Film Productions at Jalan
Ampas.
1950-67 250 Films are made in
1953 Cathay Keris set up to make Malay
films. They
focused on stories from the Bangsawan and
Malay
folklore. They released about 10 films a year.
1957 P. Ramlee wins best actor award at
the Asian
Film Festival Awards.
1960 Cathay Keris screened its first
Chinese film, The
Lion City.
1963 Television is introduced to first
1964 The impetus behind film production at Cathay Keris
Loke Wan Tho
was killed in
an aircrash at the Asian Film Festival at
1964 P. Ramlee left
1966 Cathay Keris retrenched staff because
of
competition from television and loss of the Indonesian market due to
the
Confrontation. Till this day the studio exists in name only.
1967 Shaw Brothers closed down Malay Film Productions. Competition from
television, and
1960s and 1970s The Malay movie industry moved to
1973 P. Ramlee died. The Chinese
language kung fu film, Ring of Fury,
starring local martial arts teacher, Peter Chong, is made in Singapore.
1974-5 Chong Gay made the films, The Hypocrite, Crimes Does
Not Pay
and The Two Sides of the Bridge.
1978 The film They Call Her Cleopatra Wong starring Marie Lee
and Brian
Richmond was made. Sunny Lim tried to promote the film in
1991 No films were made in the 1980s until the true story of serial
priestly
killer Adrian Lim, Medium Rare. The film flopped at the box
office in
1995-6 Army Daze was made and released in 1996. Although a box
office
success in
1997 Hugo Ng's God or Dog was made, and had moderate success in
earning
back its cost in international sales. Eric Khoo's
12
Storeys was made in this year and
received
international critical acclaim. Lim Suat Yen's
first film The Road Less Travelled
was released and had international critical
success. This film and 12 Storeys
were
described by Kenneth Tan, Chairman of the Singapore Film Society as
films that
he would "be proud to show anyone anywhere. They prove that local
creative
credentials are becoming evident".
1998 The year saw sudden upsurge in local films which had box office
success in
After this year there has been a steady output of Singapore films, many
of which you can read about in the references below.
Other good works include:
Lim Kay Tong, Cathay: 55 Years of Cinema (1991)
Timothy White, “The Cinema of Malaysia” The Arts, issue no.
4, June 1997, pp.18-21.
Timothy White, “When Singapore was Southeast Asia's
Mohd.
Zinjuaher H. M. Ariffin,
Sharifah, Sejarah
Filem Melayu/The
History of Malay Motion Pictures (Kuala Lumpur: Sri Sharifah,
1980).
“From Kachang Puteh
to Popcorn: Charting the Course of Singapore Film”, 12X, May
1999,
pp.4-5.
Timothy White “Historical Poetics, Malaysian Cinema, and the Japanese
Occupation”, Kinema, no.6 Fall
1996,
pp.5-27 (in the course notes) or at the website: http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/FINE/juhde/white962.htm
T.N. Harper, “Popular Cultures in Transition” in T.N. Harper, The
End of Empire and the Making of Malaya, (1999) pp.282-285.
Websites:
History of Shaw Brothers
http://www.shaw.com.sg/shawstory/shawstory.htm
The Film 12 Storeys:
http://www.zhaowei.com/12rev.htm
Singapore Cinema in the 1990s:
http://www.finearts.uwaterloo.ca/juhde/yvo011.htm
Video:
Hey
They Made a Difference: Loke Wan Tho (1997, Available at READ at Teachers
Network on VHS http://readtnlibrary.carl.org/).
From Kachang Puteh
to
Popcorn (1999 Available at NTU
library. It can be download once you have
located it
on the NTU library's catalogue)
SUMMARY OF HEY
Achievements
Between 1950 and 1967 over 250 films were produced in
Origins and Achievements
Mr Kwek Chip Jian, a manager from Shaw Brothers' Malay Film
Productions,
described how the early Malay movies were influenced by Indian films.
In his
time, there were five Indian directors. Every Indian director
would have
a Malay assistant, so they learnt from the Indian directors. When the
Indian
directors went back to
Artists and Studios
The people who made the movies lived together in company housing near
the
studios. Shaw's Malay Film Productions (hereafter MFP) was at Jalan Ampas, and
accommodation
quarters was at
P. Ramlee's Talent and Achievements
P. Ramlee was seen as the most gifted of
the artists
in the black and white Malay language films. He was talented at acting,
directing, and singing. The films of P. Ramlee,
such
as Bujang Lapok,
according to Yusnor Ef
were
based on daily life but had a simple message. P. Ramlee's
self-directed film Penarik Beca, was named best film in 1955 by Utusan Filem
Dan Sport
magazine. P. Ramlee was the ideal model of
a Malay
actor. He won best actor at the 1957 Asian Film Festival for his role
in Anakku Sazali,
and
6 years later was voted the most versatile actor at the same Asian Film
Festival in
Reasons for the Decline of the Malay Language Film Industry in
In the mid-1960s, there were troubled times for film making in
The Revival
Both Lim Kay Tong and Philip Chia of the Singapore Film Festival
maintained
that there was nothing stopping Singapore directors and artists from
making
good films again. The expertise is there and there are good
SUMMARY OF THEY MADE A DIFFERENCE: LOKE WAN THO (1997)
"There's no reason why movies cannot be made here.."
- Loke Wan Tho.
He died in
a plane crash at the 1964 Taipei Asian Film Festival at the age of 49. Loke's death ended an era that was never to
repeat itself.
He had built an empire of cinemas and developed a film industry in our
own
backyard. He was recognised by
Origins and influences
Loke set up Cathay Keris
in
1953 to make Malay language movies and it was entrusted to Loke's
partner, Ho Ah Loke, who as a young man
had travelled riding a bicycle from town
to town in
Comments on working in the Studio system
Datin Hjh Umi Kalthom (Cathay
Keris actress 1953-1965): "He (Loke)
advised them (film makers and artists) if the movie is weak to try
again. Advised as a friend. I would ask him
if it was not good and
he would say so. I would say are you happy with my acting? He would say
that's
good. We worked like a family.".
Wahid Satay (Cathay Keris
actor 1957-1977) "Every film that was shown received a good response.
We travelled to
Datin Kalthom: "He compared us
with
Kalthom in 1957 won a beauty contest in a magazine against strong opposition from Shaw Brothers actresses.
Dato Krishnan: "In the studio system you
compete with another. Not only boss to boss, but director to director,
producer
to producer, actor to actor. So
Lim Keng Hor (Dept GM Admin Cathay 1952-1965) "Shaw had a good head start, but we caught up. Maybe we didn't overtake Shaw, but we did a lot of good catching up".
How it began
Loke's mother saw the potential of the
movie
industry. She and two others owned a chain of theatres called
Associated
Theatres. Loke's father had made a fortune
from the
tin mines in Kluang Bahru.
He died when Loke was just two. By the
time he was
thirteen Loke was already head of the
family with his
trustees. He went to school in
Loke was very much involved in setting
up the film
industry of
Achievements of Loke Wan Tho
in Chinese Films
Ge Lan on Loke Wan Tho: "When
he came
in, he made movies which became classics. He set the example for others
to
improve and follow. For that one can never forget Loke
Wan Tho".
Lay Chen from the
Many of the Hong Kong Chinese films had
Decline and Loke's death in 1964
However, making money was getting hard by the end of the 1950s. More
people
were drawn to English movies. By the 1960s, people had to be lured away
from
their TV sets. Luxury theatres was the way
to go, such
as the Orchard, which opened in January 1965.
In spite of hard times those close to him believed that Loke would have found a way out for them. Wahid Satay said, "He was a good man. He loved us. If he was still around I don't think the studio would have closed".
Lim Keng Hor (Dept GM Admin Cathay 1952-1965): "He was a sort of rallying point. People rallied around him. This business is not a small business. It is a large business. You need some one of mental strength and whose presence is to attract you, and to attract you to him and the company. So when he died it was more or less a rudderless ship."
Wang Tin Lam (Dian Mao 1956-1969) "Shaw said they were very sorry they lost a competitor. Now there was no one to compete with us. Loke was the only one who could compete".
Loke Wan Tho
made a
difference to the
SUMMARY OF FROM KACHANG PUTEH TO POPCORN: A HISTORY OF
The earliest films made in
Zukini Martin, a rubber planter of
Armenian
descent, was the first to operate a hand-cranked projector at
In 1923, Run Me Shaw arrived from the
The Beginnings of Feature Film (Movie) Making in
The first feature movie made in
The British exercised film censorship in colonial
As the 1930s closed,
The Japanese Occupation interrupted the development of local films. The Japanese did however pay Run Run Shaw $350 a month to show Japanese propaganda films. Indian films were also shown.
When the British returned the first film that was brought in to be
shown was
at the
In 1947, Loke Wan Tho
came back to
Veteran director B.N. Rajhans talented spotted P. Ramlee. He first appeared in the movie Cinta in 1948 as the villain. P. Ramlee made his first film Penarik Beca at the age of 26. He was a gifted and innovative director and composer of songs as well as a good singer. His directing abilities matched those of the Indian directors who were helping set up the industry.
Shaw's Malay Film Productions completely dominated Malay language films until the entry of Cathay Keris in 1953. Their first movie was Buloh Perindu in 1953. It was produced by Ho Ah Loke. According to Albert Odell (Distribution Manager - 1950s Cathay Organisation) "Ho Ah Loke came from British Gayana [in South America] many years back and he started in Malaysia more or less at the same time as the Shaw Brothers started... in showing films in open air places. He was able to make an arrangement with Loke Wan Tho whereby they formed a partnership, which was called Loke Theatres. Then Ho Ah Loke sort of branched off and decided to get involved in film production in making films locally. He formed his company Kris films and had a makeshift studio in Tampines. And as they expanded he was able to induce Datuk Loke to get involved and it became Cathay Keris films."
Ho Ah Loke needed experienced film makers and artists and found no shortage of them at Shaw's Malay Film Productions. By offering them better salaries and contracts he induced them to join Cathay Keris. Despite the emergence of a rival, Shaw believed they still had the edge, and that edge was P.Ramlee. Yusnor Ef said that P. Ramlee told him that when the "audience comes to the cinema want to enjoy after a hardworking day, so don't give them problems, give them humour, song, and dance, so attract them to that story line. The complicated story line let them think at home. The second thing, don't forget to put your song. Your song or music will become the beauty of the film. And always he told me, if you want to make the film make from idea and feeling. If you get idea then you feel it, then you direct."
Any P. Ramlee film was guaranteed to fill the cinema. His emergence as a director was doubly significant. It meant that local directors could be as talented as the Indian directors.
Decline of the Film Industry in
However, in 1963, P. Ramlee left
One of the talented Malay directors was Hussein Haniff.
His classic films Hang Jebat and Dang
Anom, were more sophisticated that many
previous films,
and did increasingly well at the box office in the early 1960s. The
films that
made the most money were the
The horror films - the
Cathay Keris saw audiences declining
with the
obvious consequence of diminishing box office returns. The reasons were
beyond
their control and effectively spelt the end of Malay films in
L. Krishan, director with Cathay Kris said, "the Malay films were mainly for the mothers, fathers, grandfathers. These were the people who would walk miles to come and see a Malay film and go back. When the children were being educated they were not following the mother and father. For the mothers and fathers when television came in they started sitting down in their own homes and forgot about Malay films and films in general".
By 1972, when Cathay ceased making films, the film industry in
SUMMARY OF FROM KACHANG PUTEH TO POPCORN: A HISTORY OF SINGAPORE CINEMA PART 2 (1999)
Decline of the Film Industry in
Timothy White, film historian, "I don't think you can blame the death
of
the industry on one particular factor, eg
TV. The
movie industry had changed. Instead of making
Audiences did not flock to the Malay films but to Malay dubbed Filipino movies or Indian movies. According the Herbie Lim (own of the Garrick Theatre) these were seen as better because of better costumes and acting, - "everything was on a higher plane".
When TV arrived in 1963, the public clustered around outdoor TVs in community centres. Herbie Lim says that the introduction of TV meant that cinemas lost 50 percent of their audience.
To combat the small black and white screen,
Tony Yeow, director of Ring of Fury describes how the film was about a hawker who refused to pay extortion money, so the gangsters killed his mother, so he learns Kungfu, comes back and kills the gangsters. The film had no actors. All the people in the film, like the hero, Peter Chong, were Karate artists, Shoalin or Tai Chee practitioners. The fight scenes were not pre-choreographed, but the director would just let them fight for as long as they liked. One fight scene in the movie went on for 60 minutes.
However, the looser censorship standards in Europe and
Tony Yeow: "The main reason was the element of gangsterism. The government was very uncomfortable that there were gangsters and they were almost conducting their business in the open. That had prompted us to make the film. It was actually an anti-gangster film."
As well as the element of gangsterism, the film was perceived to be condoning vigilantism, taking the law into one's own hands. Because of this, an extra scene was shot showing a policeman warning the hero of taking independent action. The insertion of the scene was not felt sufficient to stop the ban. Singaporeans had to wait twenty years before they saw Ring of Fury, on television.
Also making Chinese language films in the 1970s was the company Chongay. It made three
Mandarin
films, Two Sides of the Bridge (1974), Crime Does Not Pay,
and The
Hypocrite. Chongay made an effort to
revive the
film industry in
Lim Meng Choo (Co-director of Two Sides of the Bridge): "Chongay's film production unit was a big thing
in those
days. They employed 10 fulltime actors. It started off with the
training from
In 1978 the film, They call Her
Cleopatra
Wong exploded across movie screens of
Brian Richmond, the male actor in They Call Her Cleopatra Wong
says
that "Sunny Lim took a gamble to produce a local English language film.
There was a market for Malay films, for Chinese films. The market for
local English
films at that time was unknown. He had big plans in the States and
They Call Her Cleopatra Wong was Sunny Lim's third
Sunny Lim: "We discovered one thing from all that - people love to see action...even today. The Bionic Boy had the strength of superman. The kids went crazy. From the word go it had been meant to be international, and it has been very successful worldwide."
Sunny Lim made only these three films in
The 1980s and Early 1990s
By 1980, film making was in limbo. However TV productions under the
direction
of experienced directors and producers from
Hong Kong producers started to use
Film exhibition started to change.
The first Singapore Film Festival of 20 February to 1 March 1987
marked a
turning point. It brought in international films which expanded the
taste of
the audiences. Also, its short film awards encouraged local
Singaporeans to
enter film making and improve their work for competition. Kenneth Tan
of the
Singapore Film Society says that the
SUMMARY OF FROM KACHANG PUTEH TO POPCORN: A
HISTORY OF
Revival of
Film-Making in the early 1990s with two big local films and the R(A) category
Medium
Rare (1991)
seemed to have a lot going for it – a
local production with an international cast. It was based on a true
story of
spiritual medium and killer, Adrian Lim. As
Geoff Malone,
“It was
obviously a brave attempt because nothing else was being made at the
time. I
think the only problem is for the sort of film that it turned out,
too many
people pinned their hopes on it. There was a sort of involvement with
EDB (
To allow the
film
to travel, the lead was given to American Dore Kraus. Given the story’s
Asian context, it was an unusual piece of casting.
Errol Pang,
Executive Producer, Medium Rare:
“If you are
cooking in the kitchen, the first dish may be not enough well done, but
now I
know the ingredients to put in, what sauce to put in, whether it's
going to be
lightly burned or a little bit cooked, not just medium rare. Hopefully
my
second movie will be well done.”
With a story
that
sounded too bizarre and out of place, Medium
Rare didn’t work as a film, but it at least showed a willingness by
local producers not to give up on the film industry.
Errol Pang:
“I was a
bit too early. I thought permission to go ahead with R(A)
films was a bit too late for me. If that had been 8 months later and I
had put
in an R(A) element to it, I may have hit a
million
dollars.”
The
Restricted or
(RA) rating reflected a liberation of
censorship
standards and would be a turning point in local cinema.
Kenneth Tan,
President,
“July 1991,
the R rating, as it was called then, was introduced (18 and above).
Maybe it
was such a radical change of policy and practice. The film distributors
and
exhibitors brought in a lot of different kinds of films under that
category,
some of which were very good, many of which were very bad. I think
public
reaction was typified by the feeling that suddenly the classification
was of
not very good quality films, like Holy
Virgin versus the Evil Dead, Erotic
Nights, and Erotic Ghost Story.
The shift from R (18 and above) to RA (21 and above) did 2 things. One,
it had
the age requirements a bit more stringent. Two, it introduced the
element of
contextual judgement into the rating process. In other words, it said,
I am not
just going to grade films more loosely, or in a relaxed manner because
these are
for older people. I am going to do that, and I am also going to take
into
account the artistic quality of the film.”
Ong Soh Chin,
former Straits Times film critic:
“To be
perfectly honest, I thought Bugis Street was a
waste of time and money. I thought it looked very good. The production
values were
excellent, but I thought the subject matter was not treated very well.
I
thought Singaporeans and transvestites were portrayed in a very
negative inaccurate light. I was really embarrassed watching it
actually.”
Ernest Seah, actor in Bugis Street:
“The
subject was really difficult, but it was done very tastefully and it
showed a
side of
If locals
were
offended by Bugis Street’s superficial and risqué
treatment, the West seemed to embrace it. It would go on to earn praise
from
various American film critics and became a cult hit in the
The
Rise of Art Films in
With feature
film
making at an embryonic stage, the Singapore Short Film competition,
established
in 1991, provided an outlet for budding directors.
Malone:
“From the
inception of the film festival, we have always tried to encourage Asian
films;
with the fourth festival, we had more or less established how we might
encourage the industry. That’s when Phillip Cheah
came up with the idea of having a short film award for
Eric Khoo:
“Actually
without the
Portraying a
desolate picture of the
Khoo:
“With this
film, the subject matter was non-commercial and a bit, maybe, dark, so
we
pushed it, and I was very pleased because at the end of the day when we
released it, the BFC (Board of Film Censors) didn’t delete any scenes.
It
was in its intact form. And we received the R(A)
rating for that one.”
Malone:
“I think it was also
good because he didn’t take on an easy subject. The restrictions were
because, you know, the sort of Mee Pok
seller and
prostitute story. These were not glamorous topics. Also Eric was
looking at
people disenfranchised, not considered acceptable in society.”
Ong:
“I
didn’t think it was a perfect film. I still don’t think it is a
perfect film. It is definitely flawed. But it was interesting because
it struck
home as very real. It showed life in a HDB flat. It showed a very bleak
side of
Adapted from
the
popular stage play of the same name, Army
Daze (1996) marked
Erlina Suharjono,
Vice-President, Head Entertainment Division, Cathay Asia Films Pte Ltd:
“Well it
started with Michael Chiang, the
First time
filmmaker, Lim Suat Yuen, wrote The Road
Less Travelled (1997) in
Lim Suat Yuen:
“The
Road Less Travelled was about four
young people trying to strike a balance between reality
and achieving their dreams.”
Like Mee Pok Man, The Road Less Travelled was an
independent film
made on a micro budget but it represented a huge endeavour on part of
its makers. Like
Eric
Khoo, Suat Yuen had also received cash and film stock at the
Lim Suat Yuen:
“During
that time I believed that no investors would believe that films would
make
money. That showed we had to come up with our own money, some of it is
from
family. I was trying to gather the film project from these tight
budgets so we
had to shoot it in 21 days.”
Kenneth Tan:
“The
Road Less Travelled is about the
singing movement, local writing. A certain flavour
that will allow
the film to travel, but uniquely and distinctively Singaporean.
I found
it entertaining, refreshing, real. I said
to myself,
if I had a group of visitors who knew nothing about the country or I
were at
the other side of the globe, and suddenly saw this film appearing on
the screen, I
would have
absolutely, no reservations, no hesitations, absolutely about standing
up and
shouting to people this is a Singapore film.”
Eric Khoo
continued to explore the engaging theme of urban alienation in his next
film, 12 Storeys (1997), which took an
unflinching look at life in the HDB heartland. Unadorned and
hyper-realistic, on critic dubbed it a lyric poem to loneliness.
Eric Khoo:
“After I
did Mee Pok Man,
which is considered a blockbuster in
Lim Kay Tong:
“The
majority of actors he used were people who had no acting experience or
very
minimal acting. There is a trend amongst the majority of filmmakers
here to use
fresh faces. I think they feel that there is more authenticity if they
choose
someone who is like the personality in the film. They feel they will
get a more
spontaneous performance. So you know, some
of the more
trained of us, the more professional of us, are out in the cold a
little bit.
It is the idea of cinema verite, of
getting
as close
to reality as possible. I think a lot of directors feel that if they
use
‘real people’ it is going to be more credible.”
If Mee Pok Man
had earned Eric Khoo a visibility, 12
Storeys took
Malone:
“It is not
easy to get into
SUMMARY OF FROM KACHANG PUTEH
TO
POPCORN: A HISTORY OF
1998 saw the
release of Money No Enough starring
TV comedian Jack Neo. Made on a small budget, it was a smash hit at the
box
office, grossing over 6 million dollars at the box office,
it became the second highest grossing movie of all time in
Jack Neo:
“We knew
this film was going to do something. Our estimate was based on $1.5
million
because the best film in Singapore so far was Army Daze
at $1.6 or 1.7 million. If the film can do 1.5 we would be very happy.
In the
end it came in $6 million so it was something very
unexpected. We did not know it would do so well.”
Kenenth Tan:
“Money
No Enough,
slice of life, man in the street. It was an example of film product
that built
a reputation based on word of mouth. And I
think it
was an important step in the progression of
Neo:
“Basically
what I want is not try to promote dialect or anything. What I want is
to show
the realistic part of our society. This is how Singaporeans behave and
this is
the language they use.”
The film’s
title, Money No Enough, reflected Neo’s
use of the
Neo:
“What I
think is that each language has its own way of humour. Mandarin has its
own.
English has its own; and of course Hokkien
has its
own. We are stay here and most of our generation are still using
dialect.
Because of this, a lot of humour is in there.”
The overnight
success of Money No Enough spawned
other comedies, such as Lucky Number
(1998) and Where Got Problem? looking
at similar themes of money problems and
the everyday man.
Forever
Fever (1998) was
another celebration of the underdog. It
paid homage to the 70s disco classic, Saturday
Night Fever. Having begun his career a decade ago in
Goei:
“I
certainly made the movie with a universal story in mind and I put in a
lot of
unusual elements, for instance the disco world, the use of disco classics, that is a way of transcending barriers.
So, yes, made with the
local market in mind,
but with unusual elements that allowed it to travel abroad.”
Goei mortgaged his house to fund the
film’s 1.5 million dollar budget. It paid off handsomely when
Miramax
Film Distributors of Oscar winning films, like Shakespeare
in Love, picked it up for world wide release in a
multi-million dollar deal.
Lim Kay Tong:
“If you
look at stage directors, Ong Keng Seng’s Army Daze and Glen Goei’s
Forever Fever, you will find, there is this
exaggerated element to the comedy. You may not find it from someone
from the
film and television industry if they had made that. They created this
slightly unreal
sense that does transform you, cause then you think you are in a
semi-fantasy
world so this is what they contribute that gives you variety.”
To achieve
the
film’s slick and glossy look, Goei
employed an
established Australian art director and cinematographer with credits
from Crocodile Dundee II and Priscilla:
Queen of the Desert. It was a
move that he saw as a necessary one.
Goei:
“We had to
recognise that we hadn’t made that many films here, so among our DPs and camera men there were very few who have
the
knowledge and that experience.”
The
importance of
technical talent is an issue that divides the local film industry.
The off beat Tiger’s Whip (1998), directed by
Victor Khoo, mixed Zen philosophy and stand-up comedy.
Tony Yeow,
Producer, Tiger’s Whip:
“Tiger’s
Whip was planned for the
international market. We imbued it with universal appeal, so therefore
we had an
American
actor for the lead. We didn’t have a local actor. People in the
American
market can relate to an American actor... We actually were prepared for
it not to
succeed in the
The
Teenage Textbook Movie (1998) directed by MTV producer Philip Lim
took a step in the youth market and enjoyed only moderate box office,
but was picked up by American cable broadcaster Cinemax.
Based on a
popular TV character, Liang Po Po
(1999) marked Raintree
Pictures' maiden release. Whereas previously Singaporeans had only
managed to
play minor supporting roles in Hong Kong films, now this film featured
a
leading local cast with
Daniel Yun,
CEO, Raintree Pictures:
“The film
industry is wrapt in a lot of myth and mystery, so businessmen are very
wary of
films, so it took us a lot to take that one step further and set up a
movie company. It
is considered very high risk by TCS. We learned much from the
production
industry for a while. We thought that we should take the next step as a
movie
company - not a production house - a company that looks at movies as a
business. It’s a tough business because if you apply the general rules
of
business to this business sometimes it doesn’t apply because I think
this
is a business whereby you can lose your pants. This is a business
where, on a
project basis, where you have a low budget movie and it can give you a
home run of 100
million dollars if you do it right.”
Large film
investment entrepreneurs are entirely unfamiliar to
Andrew Yap,
Executive Producer,
“We want to
be in the film industry. We are looking for entry points into the film
industry
as a business.
While Shaw
Brothers had financed Hollywood releases, Yap’s investment of $5million
into the film’s total budget signified a major step for a first time
investor from
With film
making
in
With films as
colourful as the culture they embody,
1. Account for the rise of the Malay language film
industry
in
2. Describe the operation of the production of the Malay language
films in
3.Assess the reasons why the Malay language film making industry collapsed during the 1960s.
4. Give an account of film-making in
Most of the readings from above and the material on images of the
feminine in
the Malay films would be of assistance in this tutorial. Much of this
material
you will find in the course notes.