“I Not Stupid” #atozchallenge2017

NOTE: This was written years back.

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I Not Stupid (A Review)

Jack Neo‘s I Not Stupid is a film which digs into Singapore’s flawed educational system and how it affects society

More than a month ago, my eyes got all puffy again and I blamed Jack Neo for it. If a law was ever passed against making women cry using movies, he would be in death row by now.

Of course, as you can gather from my reaction, I am actually starting to love Neo (just don’t remind me about his Liang Po Po slapstick). After watching Homerun, here was another Neo flick that had my tears streaming down my face uncontrollably – I Not Stupid (I.N.S.) or Xiǎohái Bù Bèn. Clever devil. Even his title screams with comic irony.

Compared to the first film aforementioned, I.N.S. is another Singaporean political and, more specifically, social satire. The treatment, however, is more direct though not literal. Without ever having to guess, one would not need to read any background on Singapore to realize that the film is satirical.

The whole movie is full of similes and metaphors – mostly directly injected in dialogue – that pertain to the country’s government and its people. For around two hours, we are given a peek, a good peek, at one of Asia’s well-known nations. At the same time, neighboring countries may recognize a thing or two about Singapore that resemble(s) a thing or two about themselves.

Strictly speaking, the story is about and narrated by Terry (Huang Po-Ju), a little rich boy who could be so obedient to an annoying fault. Actually, the story revolves not only around Terry, but also around poor toughie Boon Hock (Joshua Ang) and misunderstood artist Kok Pin (Shawn Lee). Well, around them and their parents, to be more exact.

The adults have their own sub-plots that cannot be simply ignored. Each of the boys belongs to section EM3 where all the kids perceived as lazy, troublesome and dumb always end up and are considered hopeless future adults. The parents, on the other hand, basically play the part of society and government. Special focus is on Singaporean education, both in school and in society.

As a satire, I found I.N.S. simple, direct, and effective in communicating the message. As a non-Singaporean, I cannot, in all honesty agree with all of Neo’s opinions. I cannot, simply because I have never met a Singaporean in the flesh, been to Singapore, personally talked to anyone who has, or discussed the country with online buddies. But as far as freedom of speech is concerned, through the use of a powerful medium, I say, yes, Neo conveyed his message very well. In fact, right at the start, he made it clear through the narration.

However, it wasn’t the “underlying” content that got to me. It was Kok Pin and his mother that made me cry.  I was doing fine until Kok Pin got up the building and…I should have known it would be about family again or I would have bought some tissue! As for funny moments, even if it was supposed to be comedy, there wasn’t a lot to laugh at, literally or not. At least I didn’t find much of the story funny. Sorry.

The kids who aren’t really stupid

I.N.S. is a brave, intelligent film done in-your-face.  It was created not to confuse but rather inform the audience and perhaps, serve as a wake-up call. It is not a stab (in fact, there is an “appreciative” comment near the end regarding “mothers”) but rather, just a prick to remind the government to do what is proper and right when it comes to educating its people. No need to beat around the bush. After all, we not stupid.

Therefore, I highly recommend this movie. Not as powerful as I found Homerun, but still a very commendable piece. I can’t wait to see another one of Jack’s Neo-isms. This guy is not to be missed. After all, he most definitely not stupid!

 

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I know I am late. I will reserve the explanation once the challenge is done through the insights. The short of it is I don’t feel well, my laptop is slow, it’s super-hot here, and it’s currently Holy Week.

I do hope you liked my post. I thought I’d share this review I wrote years ago. Once in a while, I do reviews, so if you’re interested in reading more, they’re at my CRITIC’S CORNER.

I is for, well, “I”

This piece serves as my Letter I post for the A to Z Challenge 2017.

If you’re interested:

A for Alibata – How to Spell the Ancient Filipino Way

B for Block – “How do you personally deal with writer’s block?”

C for Contents – Contents with all the Feels

D for Dialogue – Why Dialogue is Important

E for Edit – Mark Your Words!

F for Fictional Characters – “Which fictional character that you created is your favorite, and why?”

G for Grammar – GRRRR-rammar!!!

H is for Haiku – The Haiku

Homerun / Children of Heaven

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. 

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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.

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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.