I cannot but more than agree with Ong Sor Fern on her article on Jack Neo in today's Life!. Finally someone dares to speak out on how overrated a film-maker he is. I remembered how much disgust i was filled with when i was dragged to see his Money No Enough, and even after i'd sworn off watching any of his films after that, my repugnance further doubled after being forced to watch that ghastly pretentious I Not Stupid. Yeah, you bet you're not. Only fools like me, who had to sit through that revolting experience, are.

And while such a film-maker (only in all the literal sense of the word) like him, whose appalling standards overbearingly insult the art of filmmaking, is widely celebrated by ignorant Singaporeans; on the other hand of the spectrum lie the underrated Eric Khoo and Royston Tan, whose extraordinary talents have gone unrecognised locally, albeit laureated on the international film scene. Despite the cogent local flavour injected into their humbled masterpieces, they are unfortunately no match for Jack Neo's populist films (i wouldn't even call them works) whose superficial natures appeal to the mass audience at the box office. Can this then be claimed as success for local filmmaking? Commercially at most. As a film, as a piece of art, it is a downright failure. A great leap backwards for the local filmmaking scene in fact.

On the plane to Perth last weekend, i was glad to have caught Eric Khoo's Be With Me. It's simple, it's subtle, and it's phenomenally divine. It brought me to tears, which you can imagine how overwhelmingly stirring it was. When i encouraged my mom to watch it, she was already bored halfway through and at the end, failed to even understand the film one bit. I thought it was such a great pity that i had to explain the film to her, which by doing so, ruined the complete meaning of the film since it could only be fully understood through an emotionally cathartic sensation.

The film was so emotionally charged that i could feel my heart wrenching as i was glued to it. I could feel the entire film. I could feel the lack of dialogue, i could feel the atmos sounds, i could feel the awkward solitude screaming out loud, i could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, i could feel what a powerful and remarkable film it was. This is what i call excellent filmmaking. It is the ability to make your audience feel your film rather than simply be entertained by it, to challenge one's emotional faculties instead of merely compromising them. This, is therefore where Eric Khoo has finely succeeded and Jack Neo has miserably failed. This, is the difference between a filmmaker and a film-maker.