Just Follow Law 我在政府部门的日子

 
For those who hasn’t got a clue about Singapore English, better known as Singlish, “Just Follow Law” is a pun on Singlish phrase which means to obey the authority without any question.

Singaporeans and people who have been following Jack Neo’s works would be familiar with his directing/writing style. For foreigners, you might have heard about Singapore as a fine city. It’s true in the sense that you pretty much could get “fine” for any petty crime, such as eating in public bus or chewing gum anywhere at all. I’ve lived in Singapore for almost 10 years and rest assured they’re not that strict. However, you might get unlucky sometimes and the government won’t hesitate to punish. Anyway enough about Singapore law, let me tell you more about Singapore films.

Singaporeans or anybody who has been following Spore film scene would know Jack Neo is the dominant guy in the industry. His movies such as Money Not Enough, I Not Stupid, I Not Stupid Too did pretty good locally as compared to many which are dead, never been heard nor seen. Most of Jack Neo’s films share a same theme which is to be courageous to break the rule. We know Singaporeans are law abiding people and once in a while it’s good to go against the law, most importantly is to do what’s right even if it means to break the rules. But the problem is how many movies is Jack Neo going to make to show his point? Seriously, it’s starting to get annoying and it’s not funny anymore.

Just Follow Law tells the story about a poor performing technician, Lim Teng Zui (Gurmit Singh) and his “upstairs” Director of Events and Promotion department, Tanya Chew (Fann Wong). They meet an accident and have concussions. They make coma recoveries only to find out they have switched souls. First they quarrel with each other, but they start to learn more about themselves as they step into each other’s shoes. Ok, you could probably tell that I’m not too keen on describing the movie.

When I first watched Jack Neo’s early work, I thought he’s a daring filmmaker. Now I’m beginning to wonder perhaps he just didn’t know what else to film about. There’s no problem in trying to poke fun at the government, the Americans still do it all the time but I tell you what makes Just Follow Law less impressive: Jack Neo spots a blunder in the government, he points it out and ridicules it. At first, we laugh along but when he keeps mentioning it over and over, it’s just annoying. One mistake and he pokes a thousand jokes at it. As much as I wish to agree with him, I couldn’t find a reason to. Except for the part on office politics at the beginning of the film, after that it’s sliding down quickly.

Just Follow Law a self indulgence film by Jack Neo. It doesn’t do justice to his early films. If you want to check out Spore films, watch I Not Stupid or Money Not Enough. Anything but this.

Mel Says:4/10

Thank you for staying tune. I’ll review more Asian movies in the future but for now, this is the last of Asian Movie Week. Cheers. =)