A friend loaned me his DVD of this film, perhaps knowing that I once visited Singapore. After watching it, I decided it was a fun film that was, to some extent, better than some reviewers have painted it to be.
To properly judge this film, you have to put it in perspective. The U.S. film industry has had over 100 years of film-making experience. Singapore, on the other hand, is just celebrating it's 50th year as an independent nation. And, it's a nation only 3.5 times the size of Washington, DC with 3 official languages - Mandarin Chinese, English (used to be a British colony), and Malay - with multiple other dialects spoken. Point is, I doubt if the U.S. film industry would have done so well under these restrictive circumstances.
Also, the U.S. has never had a long-standing peacetime draft. Singapore, on the other hand, does. Over the years, their culture has come to accept it as the norm - leaving it open for comedic portrayals. And as we all know, what constitutes comedy and/or humor is in the eye of the beholder.
I will not give any spoilers to this film. I'll only say that if you watch it, you should watch it in perspective as you would any film from a small young nation - and apply some forbearance in your judgment.
To properly judge this film, you have to put it in perspective. The U.S. film industry has had over 100 years of film-making experience. Singapore, on the other hand, is just celebrating it's 50th year as an independent nation. And, it's a nation only 3.5 times the size of Washington, DC with 3 official languages - Mandarin Chinese, English (used to be a British colony), and Malay - with multiple other dialects spoken. Point is, I doubt if the U.S. film industry would have done so well under these restrictive circumstances.
Also, the U.S. has never had a long-standing peacetime draft. Singapore, on the other hand, does. Over the years, their culture has come to accept it as the norm - leaving it open for comedic portrayals. And as we all know, what constitutes comedy and/or humor is in the eye of the beholder.
I will not give any spoilers to this film. I'll only say that if you watch it, you should watch it in perspective as you would any film from a small young nation - and apply some forbearance in your judgment.