A loving look of Cathay and everything under its roof

MAKING a feature-length movie as a love letter to itself might seem shamelessly self-indulgent, but it's also hard to fault Cathay Organisation for Our Sister Mambo. Eighty years after its founding and justifiably proud of its place in Singapore cinema, the company has every reason to celebrate a significant milestone.

Our Sister Mambo is Cathay's first production in 15 years and serves as a tribute to its founders and its legacy of classic films. The new film, directed by Ho Widing and written by Michael Chiang, directly references movies such as Our Sister Hedy (1957) and Mambo Girl (1957), which starred Grace Chang (also known as Ge Lan), perhaps the most popular actress in Cathay's stable of stars. While she rates several mentions, the company's series of 1950s Pontianak films and Malay star Maria Menado are also lovingly remembered.

Adhering strictly to a standard formula, Our Sister Mambo is both a lesson on local cinema history and a straightforward urban comedy that touches on typical subjects such as marriage, sisterhood and dating. There are shades of everything from local TV series Under One Roof to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1967), a film with wider implications involving inter-racial relationships.