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The Golden Days Of Cinema

As Singapore is a multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-linguistic country, with a variety of races mainly the Chinese, Malay, Indian and the Europeans, the local film industry face the challenge of producing films that appeal to Singapore as a whole. This portfolio analyzes evolution of local films in SIngapore focusing on three landmark films of different languages and influences.

Pre-war

There is a large crossover between Singapore and Malaysian cinema as Singapore was once part of Malaysia until it gained independence in 1965.

The first public screening took place in 1902, in a tent in an open field. This started the ball rolling, and saw the opening of the first ever movie theatre in SIngapore and the opening of two other theatres at about the same period.

In the 1920s ans 1930s, two prominent cinemas were built; the Oriental Theatre and the Majestic Theatre. The first golden period of cinemas in Singapore then occured in the 1930s where more than a handful of cinemas sprung up all around Singapore.

During the war,

The Japanese Occupation saw western films being banned and many large cinemas occupied by the invading forces. Cinemas such as Capitol, Oriental and Majestic were renamed in Japanese names and were used to screen Japanese propaganda flicks in an attempt to justify their invasion of Asia.

Post-war

The film industry thrived after the war, establishing big companies such as Shaw Organisation and Cathay organisation which aggressively expanded their cinema empires. These organisations owned production lots; Shaw had Malay Film Productions at Jalan Ampas and Cathay at Jalan Keris.

Rise and Fall of Cinema

1930s Shaw brothers and Cathay were formed as theatre chains.
1933 Laila Majnun, was the first feature film to be made in Singapore.
1935 Shaw Brothers began making Chinese films in Singapore. They switched to Malay films after their success in that language in the late 1930s.
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 Singapore. In 1958, for example, there were 17 Malay language feature films made, some had English subtitles to give them a wider audience.
1953 Cathay Keris set up to make Malay films. They focused on stories from theBangsawan 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 Singapore and then Kuala Lumpur.
1964 The impetus behind film production at Cathay Keris Loke Wan Tho was killed in an aircrash at the Asian Film Festival at Taipei.
1964 P. Ramlee left Singapore to make films in Kuala Lumpur.
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 Hollywood movies, and the cost of stock and producing films gradually brought an end to the industry.
1960s and 1970s The Malay movie industry moved to Kuala Lumpur, where production houses attempted unsuccessfully to revive its past glories.
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 America by dubbing in American voices. It was followed up by Bionic Boy and Dynamite Johnson.
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 Singapore.
1995-6 Army Daze was made and released in 1996. Although a box office success inSingapore, it never was taken seriously outside of Singapore. Bugis Street, released in 1995, was also produced in this year, and had a similar fate. However, EricKhoo's 1995 Mee Pok Man did well at the box office and received international attention.
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 LessTravelled was released and had international critical success. This film and 12Storeys 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 inSingapore although many were unlikely to be of international interest. These included, Money No Enough (the second highest grossing film in Singapore, including foreign films), Forever Fever, The Teenage Textbook Movie, Lucky Number and Liang Po Po (1999).
After this year there has been a steady output of Singapore films, many of which you can read about in the references below.

“Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity. I’d say that film is the sculpting of time.”

– Andrei Tarkovsky