AnimeBlog

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DRAMA: Homerun (film)
TYPE: Singapore film
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I’ve never really learnt about this film until recently when it was shown on TV. Homerun, is a Singaporean film, produced in 2003, and had been really success in Singapore cinema. The film had made its mark in Singapore local film industry after another highly-claimed Singapore film, “I Not Stupid” (yes, the title was intentionally put without the “am”, as for ‘I Am Not Stupid’).

The story was set in Singapore, back in 1965. The film told a story of how difficult life was back then to some people, even to get just a pair of shoes. Generally, we’ll be seeing a lot of ’shoes’ in the movie, from school shoes, soccer shoes, slippers, and many other types of shoes. OK, seriously, it was a story of a brother who lost his sister’s school shoes after bringing them for repair. And because of that, they resorted to share the brother’s school shoes, where the sister would wear the shoes to school first, and she then would run off from school to pass the shoes to her brother for his school, which started afterwards in a different school (they seemed to be separating girls and boys school).

The shoes, which were already worn out, eventually got really torn out and could hardly be worn anymore. But since the family could hardly even afford a meal, they continued to share the shoes, while the brother tried different ways to get his sister a pair of shoes. This included a series of negotiations with his rich friend-turn-enemy whose father owned a shoe store.

To cut the story short, the negotiations, however, all ended with no satisfactory for both parties. And the brother was left without a single pair of shoes for his sister again. But it didn’t completely burn away his hope. And the hope sure had not given up on him. At school morning assembly, the sister eventually saw another girl who was wearing shoes which really resembled her lost shoes. She secretly followed the girl home, and later told her brother about the shoes. Together they sneaked to the girl’s house to get the shoes which they believed were her lost shoes. They finally decided to forget about the shoes after seeing that the father to this girl was a blind man who still worked picking up garbages to get his daughter a new pair of shoes.

Still, it didn’t burn away the brother’s hope that easy. To me, more than shoes, this story actually focused on many obstacles one should cope and overcome in order to get to what he wants or desires. The obstacles could come in many different forms, that we sometimes could hardly think of. Be it in the form of betrayed friendship, money, time, nature, human culture, and many other things.

And even after we get the thing we wanted, we must remember the obstacles won’t stop right there. There are lots of other obstacles we had to cope and overcome in the future. Because our life isn’t a destination. It’s a whole long journey.

Don’t worry, the story wasn’t all that sappy and sad throughout. In fact, there were plenty of laughs for you, especially on the first half of the film. To me the film was enjoyable, and deep. I’ll post the English lyrics for the song played at the end of the film, later.

Trivia:

• On the beginning of the National Primary School Cross Country Race, the background music was from Naruto’s “Rising Fighting Spirits” theme song.

Watch “Homerun”, by clicking the links below, and tell me what you think of the film! Cheers.

Watch Homerun Part 1
Watch Homerun Part 2