Watched We Not Naughty; just now, pretty awesome story I think, despite lots of negative comments among netizens.

After the successful hits of his I Not Stupid series and Home Run, Jack Neo finally released another movie tackling certain teenhood social issues in Singapore. Themes he explored includes cyber-bullying, where the point he was trying to make was that as we generate hate, be it virtually or physically, we would have our consequences.

So this brings me back to the point about criticisms on net, I used to agree that anything virtually shouldn’t be taken seriously and should not be involved into the physical world, but guess I was wrong, I think it do will have its effect. Nice phrase in the movie: “Last time, being out would lead children turning bad, nowadays, being in the house would turn the children bad instead.” Haha agreed, somehow, actually being out with curfew actually is more beneficial I guess, had more interactions and experience of the real world out there. Thus there are some people I believe had been rotting at home too long that their academic excellence doesn’t equate to their common sense of the world. Thus, these people often are ignorant and oblivious to the society around them, leading them thinking the world revolves around them, turning them into selfish prawns, “Otak Udang” as I label, means Brain of Prawn (No Brain). Right, I suddenly thought of the joke I broke to a friend who just dyed his hair, I told him: Now you will definitely survive zombie invasion (cuz zombie eats brains which he don’t have) hahahhahahahha.

The next theme he touched on was on education, as usual, specifically the polytechnic/ITE, cuz he used ITP, so not very sure which is he referring to. Anyway, so there was this very dedicated teacher that tried very hard to help them, that believed in them, that refused to give up on them. I think this part of the story was good, where the teacher actually stripped and ran the whole school on losing the bet with his student. Despite losing his job initially, he had gained his reputation as a man of his word. He then gained the approval and admiration of his students, for one who is dependable, and trustworthy. I think this should be a model, a yardstick for all teachers to aim for. It’s really hard to do such an embarrassing “punishment”. If it were to be me, I would at most run with underwear.

Furthermore, upon knowing that his students were running for loansharks, he decided to empty his savings for them. 60k~! That was a huge lump sum of money! And not being stereotype, but seriously, is it worth it? 60k for people who had such high probability to make the effort go in vain? That struck me again. So, saying that we don’t look down on them, we don’t give up on them, do we really feel that way. By thinking about cost-benefits and turnovers or return, that showed that I did not have such magnificent heart, rather a hypocrite. Sigh. Well, the thing is, that sum was almost 100% of that teachers, not 10%, personally, I wouldn’t give more than 50% of my everything to anyone be it in verge of death, seriously, sadly. For me, I would help solve every problem halfway, and leave the other half to their efforts or for them to find more “beneficiaries”.

One really awesome quote from him, “能怪父母没教好你，能怪社会不理清， 可是未来掌握在自己的手中，自己的未来自己决定自己负责。你能怪父母和社会，但他们能替你坐牢，打偏吗?”

It translates into: You can blame your parents who did not govern you well, who didn’t show enough concern for you, or the society, the disparity, the biasness, the elitism, the inequality, that crippled you, that crushes you with all the obstacles, but in the end, your future is in your hands, the future is decided by your every actions and decisions you have made. You can blame everything under the sun, but can they replace you if you were to end up in jail or to be stroke?

And then, the next theme was parents, the examples parents showed to a child. I would say the script was good from the point of view that the way Wei Jie hit his sister was exactly like his dad, so there was this concept of learning. But there was this speech I think at the end where they say, sometimes, as parents, they could not express their love clear enough, but a lot of times, it is us who didn’t gave us a chance to, like these few years I have been occasionally buy them breakfast, chat with them, and I found out hey, they weren’t so bad after all, partly because of the scholarship perhaps, just like Samy said, “to shut their mouths up with your achievements”, but also because I initiated to start the bond. After all, they are probably the most willing to help me in times of trouble. However, in this society, ive seen many who do not. Sigh. Especially for mothers, seriously, don’t you love your kid after so much pain you’ve gone through during birth? It’s like at the scene where the 2 kids helped deliver the baby, it reminds me of the psychology lecture where they say men probably faint when seeing the birth process haha, which thus in some ways, women are superior in handling pain and stress.

The movie had a few nose-sour-ing part, like when the mom kept believing in “think positive”, when the small kid was framed for things he didn’t do, when the mother faint upon her husband’s violence, when the teacher tried to put sense into the 2 kids, when the teacher decided to run naked and asked for his wife’s support, when the daughter got her hair cut by her mum, when the brother bought a cap for his sister as he wanted her to study hard, etc……. I think the mood throughout the film is pretty well done, nice transition between funny and sad or serious, though in the middle a few boring parts. I do think that it was pretty well done for a movie to infuse in so many social issues. Though I think there are more issues to that. Oh I love the “foreign talent” part hahahahha~!

The pay-it-forward concept was there again, that the teacher had tried to help the kids, thus in the end, it was them who had helped his wife deliver the kid.