Chen mo de nian dai 2

This is not "Citizen Kane", this is not "Tokyo Story", this is not "In the Mood for Love". If you are looking for sophisticated filmic vocabulary, you shouldn't be watching a Jack Neo movie, which is largely constructed out of gags. What this movie is is a slice of late 1980s Singapore life, focused on the watershed election year of 1989. The satire is improbable, but there are numerous touches of humour and observations that can be quite canny. In fact, I find "The Diam Diam Era 2" the best and most entertaining of the "Long, Long Time Ago" series. The verbal banter is funny and enough to recommend this movie. Its sentimentality is not as cloying as in the earlier parts.

As I said before, the satire is improbable, but satires need not rely on probability to work; it just needs to be astutely observant. One famous satire is about a hero visiting a country with thumb-sized people; who can say that scenario is even remotely probable? This film is on the whole entertaining, some of the political observations are wryly funny, and for a movie that touches on a sensitive subject, it at least is level-headed enough not to make irresponsible political statements for the sake of making one. And Danny Lee proves he can act. Some may find this movie too lowbrow, but it certainly is more entertaining than many inscrutable art-house movies that can bore the pants out of you.