Reviewer's background: a nearly 40 mum of 2 girls (8 and 3) from Hong Kong.
At first, I wasn't keen to watch, because this was touted as a kid flick in Hong Kong, and also "must be seen by all parents with their children" -- to me, this sounded hard-sell.
My elder daughter had earlier watched it (English version), and hadn't commented on it, so this added to my speculation that it must be boring.
I was recently recommended to watch it by an un-married female ex-classmate, which was surprising, considering she doesn't have kids of her own.
Her reason -- if you have Singaporean colleagues, please watch it, it's funny.
So I finally watched it (Mandarin version) on video -- and yes, it's well worth a watch.
Here's why -
1. for parents (especially Asians) -- tune in to the hardship of trying to get your kids excel academically (after I watched this, I stopped forcing my elder to get 100% in Chinese dictation ... only asked her to do her best, and enjoy what she's learning ...)
2. for people with Singaporean friends, colleagues, relatives -- you'd understand how / why / what Singies act the way dey do, and why dey dalk like dat ...
3. for people who are wondering / interested to know how Singapore is governed -- an eye-opener that this movie was censored by the local, since it had so many obvious jabs at the government!
4. for Singaporeans -- enjoy your home-grown movie, a well documented dramatic piece
5. for movie-goers -- the kids CAN act! Better than the majors on Potter movie, especially Shawn Lee, he really acts hurt when whipped by his mum
Since I was watching a video version, I was able to pause (and have to pause) many times during the show to attend to kids, so didn't find the themes choppy, tho there are some gaps and the cohesion could be better improved. Maybe Neo was trying to cram as much information in the film, so many parts might had been edited out.
I give this a 6.5 out of 10. (My 10's are for pieces like LOTR, 6th sense...)
