椰林月 (MOON OVER MALAYA) (Singapore, 1957, Chun Kim 秦剑 & Chor Yuen 楚原)

/
 

The elegiac 椰林月 (MOON OVER MALAYA) provides a fitting coda to the [Nanyang Trilogy] series. The title, of course, hints at the elegy that constitutes the tragic and poetic heart of the film but it also confirms the motif of the journey — the moon as a metaphorical traveler who wanders all over Malaya (a critic at the time wrote that after seeing the film, ‘one feels like one has traveled all over Malaya’)… 椰林月 (MOON OVER MALAYA) [is also] an allegory of the left-right conflict within the Chinese community. —Stephen Teo, Asian Film Archive

In 椰林月 (MOON OVER MALAYA), Ngok Ming is an idealistic young man, passionate about promoting and developing education in Malaya. He approaches a wealthy Chinese businessman to raise funds for building schools and meets his daughter, the young heiress Cho-lin. After a whirlwind romance, Ngok Ming and Cho-lin get married.

However, Ngok Ming struggles to balance his passion for education and performing his duty of managing the family business. As conflicts between the characters escalate, Ngok Ming and Cho-lin are forced to make decisions that will change their lives forever.

南洋三部曲 (THE NANYANG TRILOGY) is a triptych of films filmed in Singapore and Malaysia that was produced by the Kong Ngee Company in 1957. The films contained within this trilogy are MOON OVER MALAYA (椰林月), BLOOD STAINS THE VALLEY OF LOVE (血染相思谷), and CHINA WIFE (唐山阿嫂). These films were notable in their time for jumpstarting the careers of teen idols Patrick Tse Yin, Pasty Kar Ling, and Nam Hung.

The Kong Ngee Company began shooting the “Nanyang Trilogy” towards the end of 1956. All three films are set in Singapore and Malaya (the latter name was in current usage at the time). Both were British colonies, though in 1956, when the films were shot, British rule was about to end in the Malayan Peninsula. Malaya gained its independence in 1957, and while Singapore remained governed by the British, it too was destined to become a fully independent nation. (Singapore joined the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, thus marking its formal independence from Britain, but it was ejected from the Federation in 1965 and thus became an independent country in its own right).

椰林月 (MOON OVER MALAYA) was restored in Singapore in 2018 by L’Immagine Ritrovata in collaboration with the Asian Film Archive. The new digital restorations of the “Nanyang Trilogy” titles are accompanied by a 118-page PDF booklet, published by AFA, which delineates the founding and history of the Kong Ngee Company, the making of the “Nanyang Trilogy,” and the Trilogy’s historical significance and cultural impact over 60 years later.

椰林月 (MOON OVER MALAYA)
(Singapore, 1957)

Director: Chun Kim 秦剑 & Chor Yuen 楚原

  • 91 minutes
  • 35mm
  • Black & white
  • Sound
Distribution Format/s: DSL/Downloadable 2K .mp4 file on server

Published By: GME

Institutional Price: $250

To order call: 212.280.8654 or click here for information on ordering by fax, e-mail or post.