Neo's winning box-office formula

JACK Neo might have made a better businessman than a filmmaker: over two dozen movies in, the writer-director is still shooting them like one long commercial with blatant product placements scattered throughout the plot.

In his latest, Long Long Time Ago, expect not-so-subtle plugs for electric fans, health tonics, a homegrown construction company and more finding its way into the script.

At best, the audience can brush it off knowing that it is par for the course when they buy a ticket to one of Neo's movies; at worst, a scene's dramatic impact gets compromised like it so often does here, the first of a two-part period melodrama set against the backdrop of the birth of Singapore.

Filmmakers practise it around the world but nobody does it as brazenly as a repeat offender like Neo who balances storytelling and sponsorship with the grace of a bull in a china shop.

It's a shame because when it comes to making movies with distinctly strong heartland themes, nobody does it better than him and that is why he is the undisputed local box-office champ.

So, expect Long Long Time Ago to still sell out cinema halls during the upcoming festive season despite all its flaws. High on nostalgia, big on laughs (some intentional like the slapstick antics of Malay funnyman Suhaimi Yusof; others unintentional like the scrappy special effects), and still riding on the SG50 wave from last year, it's what 1965 could have been if it didn't try so hard to be a thriller.

Like the latter, the cast is also made up of familiar faces from television so that should draw the crowd. Veteran actress Aileen Tan and Neo's regular collaborator comedian Mark Lee take on lead roles as a pair of squabbling siblings.

The former plays Zhao Di, a single mother who is forced to return to her family home in the kampung after being thrown out by her husband's first wife. That is only the start of her problems; she's also forced to give away one of her twin daughters and the fractured relationship with her troublemaker brother Ah Kun (Lee) and father (getai legend Wang Lei, another regular Neo collaborator) puts a strain on family relations.

But despite the challenges, she is determined to work hard to raise her other children including her eldest Shu Ting (Yan Li Xuan from Neo's segment in last year's omnibus film 7 Letters), who also doubles as the film's narrator.

Running parallel to the over-dramatic family saga are historic events which the characters find themselves in. But because they are sometimes presented in such ludicrous fashion - the race riots of 1969 take on a comic twist; while the flood of the same year turns into a larger-than-life action sequence featuring a terribly fake-looking anaconda - it feels like the facts have been distorted in the name of entertainment.

If anything, at least the cast shines with their natural performances. Sans make-up, Tan displays enough raw emotion and grit for the audience to sympathise with her character's hard life; while Lee spews the coarse Hokkien dialogue convincingly as a "sam seng" (bad boy).

As a Chinese New Year blockbuster, Long Long Time Ago is something the whole family can enjoy so there is a valid excuse to head to the cinema instead of staying home to listen to yet another relative's long-winded "grandmother" story. Told you Neo's a shrewd businessman!

Rating: C+