Neo is the One

Monday, Apr. 01, 2002 By BRYAN WALSH SINGAPORE

Balancing Act: Neo has done TV, radio, cinema and drag in his climb up the Singaporean media hierarchy

PETER STEINHAUER FOR TIME

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It's hard these days to find authority as all-encompassing as in Singapore, where citizens learn from a tender age to watch what they say, do and even think. But as Sigmund Freud would say, where there is a censorious superego you shouldn't have to look too far to find a subversive underlying id—the perfect description of Jack Neo, an actor, writer and director who doesn't keep much of anything inside. Ask him about any topic—sex, money, Big Brother—and he'll unleash his Gatling gun laugh. And that's what Singaporeans adore about Neo: the fact that he's willing to be their megaphone on the issues of daily life in jokes, on his popular TV shows and in hit films.

I Not Stupid, which Neo wrote, directed and acts in, takes on one of the core frustrations of Singaporean life: the city-state's ruthless education system, which, of course, is where citizens first feel the claws digging in. The film follows the lives of three struggling boys and their stressed parents, all feeling the pressure of a society that demands a narrow type of success at all costs. The movie and its themes—including subtle criticism of the government—have resonated with local audiences, earning some $1.8 million since its release in mid-February. That makes I Not Stupid the second-highest grossing local film of all-time behind 1997's Money No Enough and just ahead of 1999's Liang Po Po—The Movie, both starring and written by Jack Neo. For the past 12 years Neo's also found time to star in a highly rated comedy variety show, Top Fun, where he engages in the kind of gender-bending beloved by comics around the world. In Singapore, Neo is Ron Howard, Dame Edna Everage and about half the cast of Friends all rolled into one.

The 42-year-old Neo credits his success to his willingness to put on the screen what his audience actually thinks, feels and even how they talk. He broke artistic ground by writing dialogue in Singlish, the island's distinctive twisting of Shakespeare's tongue, widely spoken by Singaporeans but absent from local broadcasting. "As a director, I like real," he says. "Everything in my movies is real." Singaporean director Eric Khoo, whose gritty cinematic style puts him on the opposite end of the artistic spectrum, agrees that Neo is a master at getting at what lies beneath Singapore's stolid sterility. "I think a lot of Singaporeans are speechless," he says. "They don't really say much or vocalize their feelings. Then they see I Not Stupid and they're like, 'Hey, man, I'm seeing myself on the big screen.'"

If that's the case, life in Singapore is tougher than the tourist brochures admit. Hardworking Ang Boon (Joshua Ang), dreamy artist Liu Kok (Shawn Lee) and spoiled Terry (Huang Po Ju) get grief from their family and scorn from peers for ending up in the slowest class in school. That shame extends to their parents, who have parallel problems. Terry's father (Richard Low) fears his company will be destroyed by foreign competition, while Liu Kok's father (played by Neo) loses out at work to an incompetent expat because his English is lacking. His wife (the anguished Xiang Yun) is so tormented by her son's academic failures she canes him, only to dress the wounds later in the film's most touching sequence. And then someone gets cancer.

Neo was born in Singapore, and knew he wanted to perform when, at 14, he wrote and acted in a comedy sketch for his secondary school. His family, as focused on Singaporean success as the characters in his film, thought it was a rotten idea. "For my generation, our parents only concentrated on normal life, making some money so you've got food to eat," Neo remembers. "Acting, performing—my parents just didn't know. I didn't know if I had talents either." First came a string of small stage roles Neo says he can barely remember. Then television beckoned. Singapore had one black-and-white station in 1980, but soon he was co-hosting ubiquitous TV variety shows and honing his mid-to-lowbrow comedic style. He found his greatest success when he put on a dress, with wildly popular impersonations of a nagging housing block auntie and a libidinous grandmother. Then came films: he landed his first serious role in Khoo's landmark 1997 film 12 Storeys and made his directorial debut with 1999's That One No Enough. His family, Neo says, has come around. "They saw that even though acting was totally different, it was still something outstanding."

On TV Neo is most recognizable in women's dress, but in person he's closer to the Singaporean everyman persona. Dressed in a tan golf shirt and black khakis, he could be a systems analyst on his tea break; only his designer Dolce & Gabbana glasses hint that, unlike much of his core audience, he doesn't go home to a housing block at night. There's little evident ego, and when Neo finds out his interviewer has seen I Not Stupid, he begins firing questions: Was it good? Too local? In the next room, a television is showing the Academy Awards broadcast and Neo laughs when asked if he dreams of being awarded an Oscar, perhaps from Julia Roberts. "Of course," he says with infectious laughter, "but that's too far away from me now."

I Not Stupid has plenty of light moments, but it's hardly as broad as his earlier movies. And that was a risk for Neo: his previous film That One No Enough bombed at the box office, earning only $650,000, and he was nervous about taking on a film with a semi-serious theme. "Deciding not to go with slapstick definitely cost Jack some sleepless nights," says I Not Stupid executive producer Daniel Yun. But Neo feels it was a necessary move: getting gags in drag was good to him, but it was time to move on. "I realized my audience is lower-class people," he says, "but there are also upper-class people who don't really like slapstick. I had to adjust. I've grown."

Though I Not Stupid trips over its many messages and flirts with melodrama, it has an unerring sense of place. Neo's true inspiration was to present Terry's overbearing, white-wearing, all-controlling mother (Selena Tan) as an allegory for Singapore's famous Nanny State. Just as Terry's mother wants to run her kids' lives, Neo says, the Singaporean government has been slow to let its own children grow up. The buzz that Neo's adroit criticism has produced shows that it may be time for the government to give the kids the keys to the car.

Which may be happening. The censors had no trouble with I Not Stupid; the Acting Minister of Information even praised it. "The censorship issue is basically a non-issue now," says Khoo, whose short film Pain was banned by the government way back in 1994. "The board of censors are concerned with racial harmony and religion. Other than that, you're pretty much okay." Neo concurs. "I think that our government is quite open," he insists. "They want people to speak out. They want constructive criticism."

Constructive is the key word. "The good thing about this movie," says star Low, "is that it doesn't criticize, it just puts the issue out there for people to debate." The government recently established the Singapore Film Commission to nurture local film talent, and the city's well-equipped schools are churning out technically adept film students. So far, they've taken to the training, but still haven't shown much vision. "The Singaporean mind-set," says Khoo, "seems to be that we'll just take that spoon and eat whatever is given to us." Neo has opened the envelope. Now someone just needs to push it a bit farther.