Facebook did well to remind me the other day about Glenda. Perfect for #MondayMemoirs.
Two years ago, while I had not really recovered yet from my parents’ passing-away, Typhoon Glenda decided to add insult to injury.
I came home with a bruised and almost-cut upper lip from hurrying and slipping face-first on the pavement. It was disaster I came home to. The roof over my sister’s old room partially came off and was found in the neighbor’s yard. The ceilings leaked dirty-brown on the walls. The floors were flooded. Sheets and things were wet and stained for good. The gate was useless. The fence was completely down on the ground. Trees and all other debris were, too…
I wanted to cry. In fact, I was tearing up while my then-boyfriend/now-husband and I were trying to scrub all the dirt off the walls. I felt so sad for my parents who built the house for our family. I felt sad because there were still problems I was going through that my parents were not able to solve. I did not know how exactly to go from there. Thank God for my other half who made things a little bit easier and less lonely.
The effects of this event are still certainly felt until now. It led to a confrontation that I tried to avoid but had no choice–it was a matter I could not let pass, one of those important things my parents left unsolved. It led to more problems in the coming years, with people taking sides, bad-mouthing the “enemies”, back-stabbing the supposed “allies”, doing the same to me, or sometimes to the point of others trying to run my life (you know, if you don’t follow their advice/suggestion, or you so much as say a word to the enemy, you are labeled a traitor).
It didn’t matter that I didn’t talk to the other side because they said so and I was just trying to keep the peace, then I would find out they talked to the other side. Or that one kept saying she was mad at our allies and wasn’t talking to them anymore, but guess who keeps talking to them until now and sends to me their messages of disapproval of how my new family and I are doing things wrong all the time.
I wish Glenda never paid a visit. Maybe things still wouldn’t be solved, but maybe we would be in a lot less mess than this. The house has never been the same again. Just like me. We’re still trying to pick up the pieces.
While laden with political undertones, Jack Neo‘s Homerun, the Singaporean adaptation of the Iranian original Children of Heaven managed to be quite touching as a family drama with two kids playing the main roles. Image from HERE.
Tip: If you really want to see me cry by watching a movie, then it better be about family. I cried buckets just watching the Singaporean flick Homerun (Pao Ba Hai Zi) on TV.
The movie is actually an adaptation of the Iranian original entitled Bacheha-Ye-aseman or Children of Heaven by filmmaker Majid Majidi. However, according to other reviews I’ve encountered, this new version by director Jack Neo did not exactly copy off the whole story of the original and Neo added flavors of his own. I have not seen the original, though, and therefore cannot make any kind of comment. [Ed. Please read my update at the end]
Set in 1965, Homerun centers on Ah Kun (Shawn Lee), his sister Seow Fang (Megan Zheng), and their seeming obsession with finding a new pair of shoes for the girl. If they cannot achieve that specific goal, at least, they have to find the old ones that Kun lost. The very significance of the goal becomes understandable from the start. Their family lives in poverty with the father taking all the odd jobs he can find and the mother heavy with a baby. Them being so poor, the siblings know that their family cannot anymore afford to buy yet a new pair of shoes.
To solve the problem, Kun and Fang end up using the same worn-out pair that Kun owns. Fang wears them to school in the morning and gets into trouble with her teacher scolding her for wearing boys’ shoes that are even too large for her. Kun wears them in the afternoon and gets into deeper trouble with the principal always catching him going to school late. What makes things doubly hard is they keep the problem a secret to spare the parents from further worry. This only creates complications. In his desperation, Kun is forced to swallow his pride and submit to rich boy Ben Soon‘s (Joshua Ang…In reviews, the character is Ming Soon) demands and conditions just to acquire new shoes for his beloved sister.
Homerun has a familiar, universal theme – poverty. However, the actual theme, if you concentrate on the movie alone, is family love as well as friendship. If you concentrate further and are familiar with Singapore’s political history, you will further find underlying messages that Neo did not exactly try to hide. I am, of course, under no authority to comment on this, so I will leave the debate on those who do have authority. Personally, I am more touched by the family love theme. This is what I will concentrate on.
It was very commendable of Kun to be so loving and caring for his family, especially for his little sister. The things he did just to replace her shoes and make her smile again surely melted my heart. She was no ungrateful wench either. In her quiet way, Fang appreciated his efforts, never got mad at him, and actually cared for her big brother as well. Both were just victims of poverty, symbolized by the shoes they so wanted. Or by the lack of shoes, to be more specific. You’d have to be touched by the sacrifices the kids had to make, especially Kun when he joined a race and, in his belief, “lost”. His loyal friends, at least, were always there to try and help as much as they could, which was also touching.
This movie certainly makes it up my list of favorites. I highly recommend it as a family drama. It is a very well-made story, simple and direct, the best way to get your message across. You’d want your audience to focus on one or two character(s), not bombard them with others’ sub-plots. Too much ingredients and flavor sometimes ruin the taste.
The characters in Homerun were well-developed. There were no mysteries that needed to be solved, save from who got the old shoes. No high-tech presentations. After all, it was 1965. Certainly no hysterics. There were crying scenes, yes, but mostly, the situations and long faces would make you do all the crying yourself. If you were me, anyway. The kids were very good actors, particularly Zheng who became co-winner of the Best Newcomer category and gave the movie its first-ever Golden Horse award.
The movie wasn’t very sad all through-out, though. In fact, there were a lot of funny scenes, especially with Kun’s friends providing the comic relief. There’s the stereo-typical fat kid who’s supposed to be considered ugly and called pig, but other than that, I have no complaints.
For me, this movie – as a movie – deserves FIVE STARS. No questions asked.
UPDATE!!! I spoke too soon about the No-questions-asked thing. I was already considering reposting the above review some few weeks back (I wrote this several years ago) when recently, at the seminar I attended, we were shown the Iranian film aforementioned. Indeed, the main plot was there, and I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed because the Singaporean filmmaker took a LOT of liberty copying the original. I won’t elaborate anymore.
Now I was thinking that Jack Neo just lost one fan in me. He did clearly state at the start that it was an adaptation of the Iranian original. Even so, I am changing my rating to THREE STARS out of five stars. It is still one of my faves mainly because it was the first I saw and to be fair, many stuff were indeed added.
Now, to give merit to the original, I like it as well, despite some parts that I didn’t really appreciate.
I commend Majid Majidi for a job really well done! There was certainly an endearing innocence in his main characters. I didn’t really like the father very well, but I liked the much simpler and charmingly funnier plot, made me believe it could happen to kids, that that was a more realistic scenario. Now I’ve got one more title to add to my faves list. FOUR STARS!!!
The original version of the story of two kids sharing one pair of worn-out shoes…Image from HERE.
Have you seen any of these two flicks? Or did you get to see both? What can you say? How would you compare one to the other? Let me know what you think and post a comment! I was thinking of running a poll asking which you like better and using WP’s poll feature. But I’m thinking, rather see people post comments and see how many like what movie. Better to be more visible 🙂
For more reviews in this blog, kindly visit the Review Section of my VIEW BOX. I am posting old and new stuff.
The End Justifies the Journey 