10 exciting Chinese New Year films to watch this festive season

As the Year of the Snake arrives, Singapore’s cinemas and streaming services offer a slate of shows that mirror the serpent’s qualities of transformation and renewal. From local comedies to international art films, here are the releases welcoming the Chinese New Year.

Number 2 (NC16)

95 minutes, opens on Jan 28

The sequel to comedy-drama Number 1 (2020) finds home-grown actor and comedian Mark Lee reprising his role as part-time drag queen Chow Chee Beng.

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Even as he struggles with headstrong son Mason (Estovan Reizo Cheah), Chee Beng has to take his drag troupe The Queens – featuring Darius Tan, Jaspers Lai, Kiwebaby Chang and Gadrick Chin – to a make-or-break competition in Thailand. Veteran entertainer Marcus Chin joins the cast, playing a retired drag queen.

The new film, shot mostly in Thailand, comes after the first movie’s Golden Horse Award wins for Best Makeup and Costume Design, so its makers have spoken about going even further in headgear and outfits while also amping up its action and drag performances.

I Want To Be Boss (PG13)

123 minutes, now showing

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Singaporean actor and film-maker Jack Neo dives into the topics of the day with gusto – his movies have touched on the cryptocurrency craze and dubious nutritional supplements, for example. In his 39th film as director – which he insists is not science-fiction but a comedy-drama set in a slightly altered Singapore – domestic robots with AI brains are everywhere, bringing about both bliss and misery.

Long-time Neo collaborator Henry Thia is Dongnan, a chef who aspires to be the type of white-collar leader mentioned in the title. His wife Nan Sao (Aileen Tan) is less than thrilled about his new restaurant venture. To mollify her, he buys the domestic robot Ling Ling (Patricia Mok), but the family finds that Ling Ling is capable of more than it bargained for.

Queen Of Mahjong (PG13)

100 minutes, opens on Jan 28

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A cast of Hong Kong greats – including Kenneth Ma, Samantha Ko, Carlos Chan, Dada Chan and Benz Hui – appear in the comedy-romance about village chief Long (Hui) and his four children.

Among them is Xiao Dong (Ko), a high-flying insurance agent in a relationship with mahjong-hating scientist Ma Zhuang (Ma), who must hide her passion for the game to preserve his affection. Another daughter, Xiao Nan (Dada Chan), is an on-set intimacy coordinator who locks horns with hot-headed actor Qian Hong Ge (Carlos Chan), but the enemies soon become lovers.

Baby Hero (PG13)

105 minutes, now showing

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This action-comedy follows Sun (Long Lee), who moves to Thailand’s Happy Village to chase his music dreams. When his girlfriend Leena (Hayley Woo) and tourists – including thief Ah Jiu (Wang Weiliang) – arrive, they embark on a mission to protect a magical statue from local thugs.

The film blends Thai-inspired action sequences with comedy, featuring supporting characters Meng Meng (Ya Hui) and village chief Por Yai (veteran Thai actor Vithaya Pansringarm).

Mistress Dispeller (PG)

94 minutes, opens exclusively at The Projector on Feb 13

This award-winning documentary is part of indie cinema The Projector’s programme of Chinese films to be released over the festive period.

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Ms Wang Zhenxi appears to be an ordinary middle-aged woman living in Luoyang, a city in Henan province in China. Also known as Teacher Wang, she has a unique job: She is a professional mistress dispeller, an expert who goes undercover to befriend the adulterous husband and his lover, understand what draws them together, then break up the relationship and help the married couple reconcile.

Hong Kong-born film-maker Elizabeth Lo interviewed dozens of mistress dispellers to find Ms Wang, a woman who had earned the trust of her many clients, including Mrs Li, who hires Ms Wang to work on her husband Mr Li and his mistress Fei Fei. It is this love triangle that Lo’s camera follows.

The documentary earned Lo the Author Under 40 Award and the Netpac Award at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, as well as prizes for documentary film-making in Chicago, Denver and New Hampshire. In its review, entertainment trade magazine Variety calls the film a “haunting and strangely romantic” record of an “unusual, stranger-than-fiction custom in China”.

Styled & Sutured: Fashion On Screen

New clothes are traditional for Chinese New Year, so this programme is timely as it explores the relationship between identity and fashion through film screenings and events.

A highlight is a 4K restoration of Indian director Tarsem Singh’s visually glorious fantasy The Fall (2006, NC16, 117 minutes, screening date to be announced). An indelible part of the film’s celebrated look is Japanese costume designer Eiko Ishioka’s outfits that blend sculptural and ethnic elements to stunning effect.

The programme includes another Ishioka project, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992, M18, 127 minutes, screens on Feb 14, 8pm), also restored in 4K. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the film is mocked for Keanu Reeves’ atrocious English accent, but adored for Gary Oldman’s performance as Dracula and Ishioka’s designs, the most famous being Dracula’s crimson armour that resembles muscle tissue.

Styled & Sutured: Fashion On Screen runs till Feb 23 at the Asian Film Archive’s Oldham Theatre, with a Chinese New Year break from Jan 27 to Feb 8. Prices for standard tickets are at $10, with concessions for students, seniors and full-time national servicemen.

Scales and serpents: The world of cinematic snakes

The Snake Cinematic Universe is alive and writhing in Chinese and Western cinema, in which snake mythology takes strikingly different forms.

The Chinese films listed here are adapted from folk mythology, which portrays snakes as romantic spirits who yearn to be human. Snakes also represent natural forces that bring about creation, renewal, wisdom and longevity, as well as danger and mystery.

In Western media, however, movie snakes are usually there for scares. From Nagini – the slithering ally of evil wizard Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter books and films (2001 to 2011) – to Jafar, the magician in the Disney animated fairy tale Aladdin (1992) who turns into a cobra, snakes are rarely a force for good.

The Legend Of The White Snake (2019)

This folk tale has been celebrated on Chinese opera stages for centuries and the list of theatre, film and television adaptations is long.

One famous version of the story has two snake spirits – one white and one green – who become human females. White Snake Bai Suzhen falls in love with the human Xu Xian, but fate will not be kind to human-spirit pairings.

The legend in its original form was a scary tale about shape-changing demons. But in recent times, the story of the snake sisters has evolved to represent hidden identities, forbidden romance, the bonds of sisterhood and the struggles of women in a patriarchal society.

In 2001, Singapore broadcaster Mediacorp aired period drama Madam White Snake that starred real-life celebrity couple Christopher Lee and Fann Wong. The series is available on streaming platform mewatch.

A 35-episode Chinese web series adaptation, The Legend Of The White Snake (2019), starring Ju Jingyi and Yu Menglong, is available on streaming platform iQiyi.

Green Snake (1993)

Hong Kong novelist Lilian Lee wrote an interpretation of the famed Chinese legend, published in 1986 and turned into a film by renowned Hong Kong film-maker Tsui Hark in 1993.

The fantasy – today regarded as among the best made during the golden age of Hong Kong cinema – stars Joey Wong as White Snake (Bai Suzhen) and Maggie Cheung as her sister Green Snake (Xiao Qing).

Vincent Zhao stars as Buddhist monk Fat-hoi, who believes in the principle that animals should stay in animal form, even if they have performed enough good deeds to deserve human rebirth. When he discovers the snake sisters living in a human village in defiance of his laws, he sets out to return them to their former state.

Green Snake – available on the film streaming site Mubi – was screened in 2024 at the Asian Film Archive to mark the release of Singapore-born author Amanda Lee Koe’s novel Sister Snake, also a retelling of the Chinese legend.

Kung Fu Panda film series (2008 to 2024)

There is one exception to Hollywood’s snakes-are-scary rule: Master Viper, the green tree snake and member of the Furious Five warriors trained by Master Shifu. Voiced by Lucy Liu, the fangless character was among the first to welcome the trainee Po (Jack Black) into their fold. Kind and skilled in martial arts, Master Viper would appear in the first three Kung Fu Panda films, with a silent cameo in Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024).

This article was originally published in The Straits Times.