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Audio Format: DD 5.1 Surround Video Format: Full Screen 4:3 Languages: Mandarin Subtitles: English, Chinese Region Code: 3, PAL Year Made: 2003 Running Time: 110
Please note: Please verify that PAL formatted DVD will play on your machine prior to purchasing this title. (PAL TV and DVD players required.)
 Singapore has won its first-ever Golden Horse award - the Chinese equivalent of the Oscars.
10-year-old Megan Zheng was co-winner in the Best Newcomer category for her role in "Homerun", a movie produced by MediaCorp Studios' Raintree Pictures.
She shared the award with China's Wang Bao Qiang.
Daniel Yun, CEO of Raintree Pictures, said: "It just shows that we've done something right. It's a good encouragement for us to do more. The significance really is that it puts Singapore film-making on the Asian map."
"Homerun" is the first Singapore film to be nominated for the Golden Horse Awards.
Directed by Jack Neo, it's an adaptation of Iranian movie "Children of Heaven".
"Homerun" is set in 1965 Singapore and it weaves a tale of friendship and the power of a family's love.
Jack Neo admitted that he was deeply touched by The Children of Heaven, and cried shamelessly in the cinema. However his remake of this Iranian sleeper hit must be regarded as purely exploitative.
After slamming the Singapore government in I Not Stupid, he now turns his satirical eye onto Malaysia. Neo cunningly secretes several episodes of Singapore-Malaysia political disputes of the past few years into a story about kampung (village) boys' love-hate relationships. In a sense this rural story, set in 1965, can be considered a hybrid of Taiwan cinema's Healthy Realism movement of the 1960s (initiated by veteran director Lee Hsing), and Hong Kong political comedy-thrillers of the 1980s-1990s.
However, the major flaw of this gimmick is that Jack Neo overplays the satire when he lambasts Malaysia and Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir (albeit with a mandatory happy ending which tries to patch up the damage caused). As a Malaysian, I find this treatment too heavy-handed, but I note that even my fellow Singaporean film critics agree with me. It seems that Neo is prepared to lose the Malaysian market, because I predict that Homerun will be banned there (as was the recent satire Zoolander).
Homerun is planned for release two days before Singapore's National Day, August 9, 2003. The climax of the film takes place on August 9, 1965, and the mother of the two shoeless children fortuitously delivers her third child on that very day. As stated earlier, the film focuses on the schoolboys' quarrels, and to underline the metaphor, Neo cuts to a dispute between Singapore and Malaysia over the water supply which also coincidentally starts on August 9. Unlike Hong Kong political comedies, where the filmmaker usually takes the side of the common citizen, Neo's film faithfully adheres to the public pronouncements made by the political leaders on both sides. However by accepting the Singapore Government's words at face value, and by adopting the official line, the film becomes facile political propoganda, rather than deeper human drama which inspired Neo's I Not Stupid?
Ostensibly an adaptation of the acclaimed Iranian movie, Children of Heaven (directed by Majid Majidi in 1997), Homerun loosely retains the basic storyline, but makes a number of changes to the plot of the original film. Set in Singapore in 1965, Homerun tells the tale of Ah Kun (Shawn Lee), a young boy who accidentally loses his sister, Seow Fang's (newcomer Megan Zheng) school shoes. Their solution is to share Ah Kun's shoes, with Seow Fang wearing them to school in the morning, then running back home to pass the shoes to Ah Kun so that he could attend classes.
Added to the fray is a subplot about Ah Kun and his buddies' quarrels with kampong rich kid Ming Soon (Joshua Ang) and his posse, who turn from friend to foe, as the two groups duke it out over matters like well water, and trading homework for soccer boots. Just when Ah Kun has run out of ideas to replace his sister's shoes, the opportunity presents itself - if Ah Kun manages to get third position in the annual Inter-School Cross Country Run, he will win a pair of school shoes, putting an end to his woes of shoe-sharing.
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