The Singaporean directors are moving on to cartoons rather than live-action films for the past few years, with tales of dragons and animals of the zodiac. I personally always had a very bad impression of the movies after just seeing their trailers, and Sing To The Dawn basically just drove that message deep home.
To anyone who had read the original book, it is not bad. In fact, the original story is awesome, a deep, striking and poignant depiction of the social injustices and discriminations of a rural, poverty-stricken village in Thailand. It was a heartbreaking and heartwarming tale of hope and courage and thoroughly deserved all the awards and praise it received. Unfortunately, I believe that the movie will not receive any awards, and praise will be rather scarce.
The whole point is that the movie got its message wrong. Sing To The Dawn (the book) is about sexual discrimination, social injustice, hope and courage. However, the trailer was enough to deeply disgust me. The story is not about how Dawan and Kwai miraculously went on a beautiful voyage with lots of singing and dancing monkeys in their beautiful, sun-bathed village. The entire book with poignant but beautiful, showing both the worse and both sides of human nature, but I did not see any of those elements in the movie. Once the message and theme is wrong, coupled with animation that still need lots of improvement, the entire movie is just a flop, and I wonder how the movie makers can still be so proud of it. They had wanted to make this a children’s movie, however, they had made it so cheerful that the main themes of the book could not be further away. It should not be said that it was adapted from the book, but rather, it could be called a far-fetched, utopian fan video.
All in all, parents, if you are thinking of bringing your children to the movie, do not bother. Buy the book instead. It will save you money, last longer, and get your children to read more quality readings. The book will show them the injustices of life in a place so close to us, where landlords collect huge rents while not lifting a finger to work, officials ask for huge bribes with forty percent interest because they know that the peasants have no one to turn to, and girls are not even given a chance to study because they are seen as inferior. The book will open their eyes to the world and the problems that need to be solved. And hopefully, it will inspire them to be like Dawan, who hopes, wants and dares to be the change that she wants to see in her world.
At least, it will be better than seeing your children come out of the theatre, greet the press and all they could say is that Dawan is pretty or that the dancing monkeys were funny.
