It's a Great, Great World

It's a Great, Great World (Chinese: 大世界; pinyin: dà shì jiè) is a Singapore film directed by Kelvin Tong. It is set in the Great World Amusement Park and was released in Singapore cinemas on 27 January 2011.[1] The film features an ensemble cast of local singers, established MediaCorp artistes, a number of celebrities from Hong Kong and Taiwan and getai group "Babes in the City". A noted feature of the film is the heavy use of common Chinese dialects and many actors had dialogues in dialects they were not familiar with.[2][3]

It's a Great, Great World
大世界
Theatrical poster
Directed byKelvin Tong
Written byKelvin Tong
Ken Kwek
Marcus Chin
Screenplay byKelvin Tong
Music byAlex Oh
Joe Ng
Production
company
Distributed byGolden Village Pictures
Release date
  • 27 January 2011 (2011-01-27)
Running time
91 minutes
CountrySingapore
Languages

Plot

It's A Great Great World is set in Singapore's legendary amusement park named Great World, which was also known to locals by its Hokkien name 'Tua Seh Kai'. Spanning from the 1940s to the present day, the film presents four tales centred on attractions within these once famous walls.

At present time, Ah Min finds four old pictures in her mother's photography studio and seeks out her mother's old friend Goh Ah Beng, who tells her the stories behind these photographs. These four stories include:

  • A clown on a quest to have his photo taken with English movie star Elizabeth Taylor and tells his experience to his ageing mother.
  • The tale of a carnival shooting gallery operator who experiences her first teenage love with a Malaysian medicinal oil seller's son.
  • A washed up diva of the Flamingo Nightclub who used to sing for her lost love, and rediscovers true support by her audience and her manager.
  • A lok-lok seller who narrates the story of his wedding dinner with his mute wife the night the Japanese invaded Singapore during World War II.

Interwoven into the film are stories of a multitude of characters that lived, worked, played, sang danced and even fell in love in Great World.

Cast

[4]

Reception

As at 21 February 2011, the movie has earned more than S$2 million at the Singapore box office and attained viewership of 250,000.[5]

Historical references
  • Televised broadcast of Lee Kuan Yew's emotional speech after Singapore's separation from Malaya on 9 August 1965
  • During the wedding banquet towards the end, Aunty Lucy runs to the restaurant kitchen to warn Ah Chuen and the others that the Japanese are bombing Singapore. With the air raids going on, the kitchen staff reminisce and have one last dinner together knowing that this may be their last as colleagues and friends. After that bombing of Keppel Harbour on 8 December 1941, Singapore fell to the Japanese just months later in February 1942.
  • In the nightclub scenes, Rose is frequently asked by guests to perform "Rose, Rose, I Love You", which was a popular song written by patriotic Chinese songwriter Chen Gexin during World War II.

Variety show spin-offs

There are two variety shows that relate to the movie. The first show was "Amazing Great World" (精彩大世界) which was broadcast on 24 January 2011 on Mediacorp Channel U and another was "Great World Once More" (情迷大世界) which was broadcast on 27 January 2011 on Mediacorp Channel 8.

Television broadcast

The movie was telecast on Mei Ah Movies Channel in late 2011. In 2013, Channel 8 broadcast the movie as the Day 1 movie during Chinese New Year with dubbing. Chinese dialects were dubbed except for Aunty Lucy's Shanghainese dialect. On 8 Jan 2019 and 5 May 2020, it was shown on Channel 5 in its original languages.

See also

References
  1. "inSing movies". SingTel Digital Media Pte Ltd. Archived from the original on 13 January 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
  2. "《大世界》方言大考验 周初明6小时化老妆". xin.msn.com. 7 February 2011. Archived from the original on 14 January 2014. Retrieved 5 September 2012.
  3. "向云露肉拍大世界 方言台词考倒众演员". Nanyang Siang Pau. 6 August 2011. Archived from the original on 13 January 2014. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
  4. "8 Invites You – It's a Great, Great World". Archived from the original on 15 January 2014. Retrieved 18 September 2012.
  5. ""It's A Great Great World" breaks S$2m box office mark". Channel News Asia. Retrieved 22 February 2011.
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