WHEN SINGAPORE WAS SOUTHEAST ASIA’S HOLLYWOOD
Timothy R. White
Dept. Of English Language & Literature
National University of Singapore
1997 has been an important year for Singaporean filmmaking. In this
year’s Singapore International Film Festival, three new feature-length Singaporean
films debuted; in addition, four Malay films from Singapore’s “Golden Age” were
screened, along with two independent features from the 1970s. Although it would
be mistaken to assume that we now have a healthy Singaporean film industry,
there are certainly signs of life appearing -- signs that have been largely absent
during most of the last thirty years.
However, at one time Singapore was a major center for filmmaking in
Southeast Asia, churning out Malay-language films in a variety of genres from two
fully-developed studios. How did they start? What happened to them? And, what
will happen to Singaporean cinema in the future?
THE EARLY HISTORY OF SINGAPOREAN CINEMA
In the mid-1930s, two film empires were founded in Singapore. The
first of these was Loke Wan Tho’s Cathay Productions, with studios in Singapore,
Kuala Lumpur and, eventually, Hong Kong. The second was the Shaw Brothers
studio, founded by the legendary brothers Run Run and Runme. Beginning with
second-hand equipment they had found in an abandoned building in Shanghai, the
Shaws built an empire that included film studios, distribution networks, and
theaters.
Both studios relied, especially in the early years, on Indian directors
remaking films they had already made in India, replacing Indian actors with locals
but keeping the scripts largely intact. Even though they were recycled, these
films, heavily laden with song and dance numbers, proved quite popular with local
audiences. Unfortunately, the booming success of Singapore’s fledgling film
studios was cut short by World War Two.
THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION
On 8 December 1941, Japanese forces invaded Malaya, and Singapore
surrendered ten weeks later, on 15 February 1942. The Occupation force set out
immediately to establish control over almost all aspects of life, including cinema.
Although the Japanese were quick to utilize the studios of other occupied
Southeast Asian nations, especially the Philippines and Indonesia, for the
production of propaganda films, they seemed to take little interest in those of
Singapore. However, there were a few films made in Singapore during the
Occupation -- Bermadu, Hancur Hati, Ibu Tiri, Mutiara, Terang Bulan di Malaya,
Topeng Syaitan, and Mata Hatu -- but little is known about these films or the
circumstances under which they were produced.
All film exhibition came under control of one of the "kaishas," or
official Japanese Occupation government monopolies; the movie exhibition
monopoly was given to Eiga Haikyu Sha (the Japan Film Distribution Co.), with its
headquarters in Singapore, and which took over all the theaters throughout
Malaya. Japanese films were used in the campaign of "Nipponisation" carried out
by the Occupation forces, who recognised the power of cinema for propaganda
purposes and for building the shinchitsujo, or "New World Order." Because the
Japanese initially lacked enough Japanese films to fill Malaya's screens, the
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Sendenbu, or department of propaganda, authorized the release of some of the
50,000 reels of British and American films they had seized, but only after censoring
and re-editing them to deliver the “proper” messages. This lasted until 1943,
when a regular supply of Japanese feature films was available.
These Japanese-made films, filmed in Japan and the studios of
occupied nations in Southeast Asia, seemed remarkably familiar to war-time
audiences; despite the propaganda content, stylistically they were not much
different from the Hollywood films that the Japanese condemned. This is not
really surprising, as Japanese cinema was heavily influenced by American films,
and the Japanese studio system was modelled, to a great degree, on that of the
Hollywood film industry. In fact, many of the key personnel involved in making
these films had trained and worked in Hollywood. For example, Nankai no
Hanataba (Bouquet in the Southern Seas; 1942), a film about the bravery of the
Japanese pilots who paved the way for the invasion of Malaya, and which was
made exclusively for screening in Southeast Asia, was directed by Abe Yutaka, who
had been known as "Jackie Abe" in Hollywood when he worked there (as an actor,
production assistant and, in lean times, a butler) in the late teens and early 1920s.
In addition to Abe Yutaka’s Nankai no Hanataba, other Japanese films
made in and for Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia include Shima Koji’s
Shingaporu Sokogeki (All-out Attack on Singapore; 1943) and Koga Masato’s Marei
no Tora (The Tiger of Malaya; 1943). Some animated cartoons were made for
exhibition in Southeast Asia also. One very popular cartoon character was
Momotaro, the "Peach boy", who appeared in a number of cartoons designed not
just for domestic consumption within Japan, but for propaganda use in occupied
countries as well. For example, Picture Book 1936 (Momotaro vs. Mickey Mouse)
featured fanged Mickey Mouse look-alikes riding giant bats, attacking peaceful
Pacific islanders (represented by cats and dolls, for some reason); the hero
Momotaro jumps out of a picture book, repels the American mice, and cherry trees
blossom throughout the island as the grateful natives sing "Tokyo Chorus".
In a more ambitious cartoon, Momotaro's Sea Eagle, released in 1943,
Momotaro leads the attack on Pearl Harbor, then "liberates" Southeast Asia;
although Momotaro himself is a human boy, the "liberated peoples" are presented
as animals (cute little rabbits, mice, ducks and bears, who willingly and sternly
fight behind Momotaro, their liberator and leader), while the Americans and British
(and especially General Percival, who surrenders Singapore to Momotaro) are huge,
hairy, ugly demons, complete with horns and drooling fangs. Nippon Banzai,
another animated propaganda film designed for use in the occupied nations,
employed an almost avant-garde mix of line animation, shadow animation, and
live-action footage, along with the following commentary (in English!):
The peaceful Southeast Asian countries have been trampled underfoot for
many years, their inhabitants made to suffer by the devilish British,
Americans, and Dutch. In the midst of this hardship, in their hearts they
(the inhabitants) have waited for a ray of light, a strong soul. That light,
that soul was Japan.
THE “GOLDEN AGE” OF SINGAPOREAN CINEMA
To the disappointment of no one but the Japanese themselves, this
“ray of light” was extinguished in 1945, and the Japanese Occupation ended.
Within a few years, the cameras were turning in Singaporean motion picture
studios once again. The first postwar film studio was Malay Film Production Ltd,
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established at 8 Jalan Ampas by the Shaw Brothers in 1947. Malay Film
Productions was soon followed by Cathay-Keris Productions, the result of a merger
of Cathay Productions and Keris Productions, with production facilities first in
Tampines and later on East Coast Road.
The chief asset of Malay Film Productions was, of course, the great P.
Ramlee (see last month’s article on Malaysian cinema for more information on
Ramlee). Almost a one-man production crew, Ramlee wrote scripts, wrote songs
(both music and lyrics), sang, acted in movies, and directed; almost everything, in
fact, but run the cameras (although there is evidence from his films that he
probably specified camera angles and lighting plans)! His films, especially the
comedies, were very popular among the Malay population of both Singapore and
peninsular Malaysia.
P. Ramlee made the majority of his films at Malay Film Productions
studio in Singapore, and because most of his films were contemporary comedies or
melodramas, and were filmed partly on locations in Singapore, they provide an
interesting look at the Singapore of the 1950s and 1960s (especially interesting is
his 1961 film, Seniman Bujang Lapok, known in English as The Nitwit Movie Stars,
for its scenes of filmmaking at Malay Film Productions). However, the Singapore of
P. Ramlee’s films (and, in fact, most of the Malay films made in Singapore) is
unusual in one important respect. It is a Singapore almost totally devoid of
Chinese. Just as African-American filmmakers of the 1920s-1940s made films
featuring an almost completely black America, Malay films featured a Singapore in
which racial difference, and the tensions it sometimes brought, did not exist.
Certainly there were exceptions, but most of these films were made primarily to
entertain, and social commentary, while not unknown, was seldom aimed at
ethnic, racial, political or religious conflicts.
Cathay, unlike the Shaw brothers, relied, in addition to the foreign
films it distributed, to a great extent on films made at its Hong Kong studio. These
films were made mostly in Mandarin, but sometimes, especially in the early years,
in Cantonese. In 1997 Cathay re-released three of these Mandarin films -- Our
Sister Hedy (Tao Qin, 1958), Her Tender Heart (Evan Yang, 1959) and Mambo Girl
(Evan Yang, 1957) -- revealing the inventiveness that became a standard feature of
subsequent Hong Kong movies.
Back home in Singapore, Cathay-Keris made movies in Bahasa Melayu.
Although it lacked a star of the magnitude of P. Ramlee (although leading ladies
Maria Menado and Rose Yatimah were quite popular, as was comedian Wahid
Satay), Cathay-Keris did boast of at least one outstanding film director. Unlike the
small, personal films of Ramlee, the films of Cathay-Keris’s Hussein Haniff used a
much a larger canvas, often featuring large battle scenes filmed outdoors (but with
limited resources) with what look like fairly large numbers of actors and extras.
Instead of contemporary subjects, Haniff worked with historical stories, setting his
social commentary and criticisms in Malaya’s feudal past. As seen in Hang Jebat
(1961) and Dang Anom (1962), the films by Haniff that were shown at the 1997
Singapore International Film Festival, he was a master of mise-en-scene -scenery, precision acting, lighting -- as opposed to Ramlee, whose chief concerns
were camera work and the emotions expressed by the human face and voice.
Although not directed by “big name” directors such as Ramlee and
Haniff, the genre films, especially the horror films, made by Cathay-Keris were
popular and worth seeing even today. Better remembered than the more prestige
films are such Malay-language horror films as Anak Pontianak (Vampire Child;
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Ramon A. Estella, 1958), Sumpah Pontianak (Vampire’s Curse; B. N. Rao, 1958),
and Orang Minyak (The Oily Man; L. Krishnan, 1958). These films, based on Malay
mythology and legends, all seemed quite scary when they were seen in theaters at
the time of their release. Now, they are just as entertaining, but maybe not quite
as scary, and a little funnier than they were intended to be (although humor, as
well as songs, were an important part of the genre), and not quite what we regard
as realistic.
But this difference in the way we regard these films says much about
the ways in which films have changed, and just as importantly, the ways in which
Singaporeans have changed. Initially, movies from Hong Kong began to replace
homegrown films. But in the late 1960s television became the rage in Singapore,
and with it Western ideas and images. Of course, Singaporeans have lived with
Western ideas for many decades, and Hollywood movies have always been popular
here. But with television, the ubiquity of Western culture really began; no longer
a relatively small part of the cultural mix experienced by Singaporeans, Western
images of reality soon became something approaching the norm.
This made a crucial difference to the way Singaporeans saw reality in
movies. They began to see it more with Western eyes, through which reality lies
in the mise-en-scene -- the objects, the characters, etc. -- and not so much in the
ideas, emotions, and relationships among people. No longer was it good enough to
present mythical stories that expressed feelings, fears, and traditional beliefs
through films that suggested the essences, rather than realistically depicted the
images, of people, places and things. An unfortunate exodus occurred as
Singaporeans began to reject their own movies in favor of those of Hollywood
which, despite their high production values and visual excitement, said little to
Southeast Asians about themselves and their culture.
In 1967, the Shaw brothers closed the Singapore studio of Malay Film
Productions. Their biggest star and best director, P. Ramlee, had left in 1963 for
Kuala Lumpur’s Studio Merdeka (which was subsequently taken over by the Shaws
in 1966). Cathay had been in financial trouble since the death of its founder, Loke
Wan Tho, in an airplane crash in Taiwan in 1964. When Cathay-Keris folded in
1972, Singapore became a nation without a national cinema.
THE POST-STUDIO YEARS
After the closure of Singapore’s two major studios, few films were
made here. The handful that were produced in Singapore, or by Singaporeans, are
indicative of the changes that audiences had gone through. In 1978, independent
producer Sunny Lim made a series of action/spy movies, obviously made to cash in
on the popularity of the spy movie genre (especially the James Bond series), and
just as obviously made on shoestring budgets. But it is not the low production
values of these films that audiences find so hilarious today (two of these films -They Call Her Cleopatra Wong, directed by George Richardson in 1978, and
Dynamite Johnson, directed by Bobby Suarez in 1978 -- were screened at the 1997
Singapore International Film Festival, and earned richly deserved laughs); it is the
rather crude attempt to imitate Hollywood films that these films so sadly reveal.
Hollywood movies have their faults, but one thing is clear: For better or worse,
nobody can beat Hollywood at its own game, nobody can make Hollywood films
like Hollywood itself can. And although audiences may have enjoyed these films,
it was an enjoyment of these films as camp, not as genuine expressions of
Singaporean culture.
The few other films made in Singapore at the time did little to
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remedy this situation. In 1979, Hollywood auteur Peter Bogdanovich, backed
financially by Playboy magazine magnate Hugh Hefner, made Saint Jack, set and
filmed in Singapore. Although an interesting film, it is hardly a Singaporean film;
it merely uses Singapore as a slightly seedy, sordid backdrop for its tale of an
American expatriate involved in prostitution and petty espionage.
More recently, 1991 saw a temporary return of Singaporean
filmmaking with Medium Rare, based on the infamous Adrian Lim case. Although
made in Singapore and featuring a story based on a true Singaporean incident,
Medium Rare, directed by Australian Arthur Smith, is just as guilty as are Sunny
Lim’s movies of trying to ape Hollywood movies. Singapore comes across as pure
“oriental” exoticism; by comparison, the Singapore of Saint Jack is presented in a
much more truthful, objective manner. To make matters worse, the filmmakers
felt the need to add a white leading actress, in an apparent (and failed) attempt
to attract Western audiences and Asian audiences accustomed to Hollywood films.
SINGAPOREAN CINEMA TODAY
After Medium Rare, the Singaporean film scene seemed bleak indeed.
However, the last three years have shown that not only are there young
Singaporeans with a burning desire to make movies that speak to Singaporeans,
there is also an audience for these films. The “rebirth” of Singaporean cinema
began in 1995 with Eric Khoo’s Mee Pok Man, one of the more interesting examples
of truly alternative filmmaking in Southeast Asia in some years.
Although the influence of Western cinema is certainly not absent
from this film, in its pace, subject matter, and sensibility it is much more
Southeast Asian than it is Hollywood. It takes a subjective, at times mystical, but
at the same time detached look at a number of such typical Singaporean
characters as the cabbie who knows the best hotels for trysts with prostitutes; the
Chinese fortune-teller, with his common sense advice, "Just be gentle and patient,
and she will like you"; and the mee pok man himself, quietly plying his trade in a
small, dilapidated storefront, wearing his singlet, cooking and serving his fish-ball
noodles without a word to his customers.
1995 also saw the release of Bugis Street - The Movie, a film about
the transvestites who haunted Bugis Street in the 1960s and 1970s (before it
became a shopping center!). Although filmed in Singapore, Bugis Street, made by
the Hong Kong director Yonfan, indulges in rather shameless exoticism, and,
fortunately, did not set a precedent for future Singaporean films.
1997 has proven to be the best year for Singaporean cinema in the
last twenty-five years. In addition to the re-release by Cathay of seven of its old
films, the Singapore International Film Festival premiered three new Singaporean
films. Director and actor Hugo Ng revisited the Adrian Lim story in God or Dog,
this time with a much more Singaporean slant than that taken in Medium Rare.
Although based on an incident involving quasi-religious cults, adultery, and
murder, the film avoids the voyeuristic quality of Western films dealing with the
same sort of subject matter.
More interesting, however, were the two other Singaporean films that
made their debuts at the SIFF. The Road Less Travelled, by first time director Lim
Suat-Yen, while lacking a dramatic story that makes a lasting impression, is
significant in that it seeks to avoid the sensational subject matter often used by
novice filmmakers to attract attention to their films. The Road Less Travelled,
although similar in some ways to Hong Kong melodramas, deals with young
Singaporeans and their concerns and relationships. Lim made a film that means
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something to her, that expresses what she wants to say, and not what she thinks
will make the most money at the box office by appealing to an audience raised on
Hollywood movies.
The other Singaporean film to debut in 1995 is Eric Khoo’s second
effort, 12 Storeys, about the lives of various Singaporeans living in a rather old
Housing Development Board block. Much more skilfully made than is Mee Pok Man,
12 Storeys, while retaining the mystical quality of the earlier film, relies much less
on sensationalism. Gone is the prostitution and morbidity of a dead body rotting
at the kitchen table, in favor of the lives (both interior and exterior) of ordinary
Singaporeans. Like Lim Suat-Yen, Khoo is more interested in making a film for
himself and his friends and neighbours than in pleasing Western sensibilities.
This change in attitude is, I think, indicative of a more general
change in the attitudes of Singaporeans in general. This change is a greater sense
of pride in being Asian and, more specifically, Singaporean; not just in the wealth
and sophistication enjoyed by Singapore, but in the culture, creativity and artistic
expression that has been overlooked for too long.
Will Singaporean cinema ever be as dominant and profitable as those
of Hong Kong or Hollywood? Probably not. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.
If young Singaporean filmmakers continue to keep their cameras trained on life at
home, and if they follow in the footsteps of such greats as P. Ramlee and Hussein
Haniff, who never lost touch with the common man, Singaporean films will
continue to be appreciated where it counts: in Singapore. And, maybe, the rest of
the world will find that these films speak to them, as well.
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