Raffles Reviews

Movie Reviews, Opinion, Raffles Reviews

Alone, but Never Lonely: The Tiger’s Nest 
Reading Time: 6 minutes

By Syaura Nashwa (24S03R)
This story is the third of a 3-part series focusing on films featured during the Family Film Festival, which focused on family-centered themes and stories.

Abandoned

Balmani, the main protagonist, stays in the orphanage in Chitwan, South Nepal. He lost his mom to an earthquake back in his hometown, Kathmandu. Despite similar circumstances, Balmani wasn’t attached to the other orphans. 

Often, he’d be seen in solitude, watching the others at a substantial distance. In fact, he didn’t seem to like them much at all — they made fun of his aloofness.  

Balmani with the other children learning in a classroom.

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Commentary, Movie Reviews, Raffles Reviews

‘Guang’: A gem on what it means to hurt and heal
Reading Time: 9 minutes

By Arissa Binte Kamaruzaman (24A01A)
This story is the second of a 3-part series focusing on films featured during the Family Film Festival, which focused on family-centered themes and stories.

Guang’’s opening scenes encapsulates the visceral, inner world of its main character: notice the sharp, creaking sound of wheels in a hospital; the restless bouncing of his feet as he waits outside his mother’s ward. Wei Guang, an autistic young man, is still navigating the world around him and all the complexities it has to offer. Be it a shift in energy, in pace, or motion, the film never shies away from dissecting Guang’s sensitivities, and embracing what it means to love and hurt the way he does. 

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Movie Reviews, Opinion, Raffles Reviews

‘The Kid from the Big Apple’: Choosing to love, in spite–and because–of it all
Reading Time: 12 minutes

By Chandrasekaran Shreya (24S06A)
This story is the first of a 3-part series focusing on films featured during the Family Film Festival, which focused on family-centered themes and stories.

“I have watched this on the big screen, in the cinema—not on any streaming platform, but in the cinema—19 times before today. And I am not embarrassed to tell you that I have cried every single time.”

Mr Kenneth Tan, Chairman of Singapore Film Society
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Book Reviews, Opinion, Raffles Reviews

Raffles Reads: Year On Fire
Reading Time: 3 minutes

By Claire Jow (23A01B)

Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.

Rating: 3.5/5

It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?

Year On Fire opens with sixteen-year-old Immie wondering about the kiss that “blew up” her life: a kiss with her best friend’s boyfriend that she did not have, but had claimed responsibility for. The novel follows Immie, her brother Arch, and her best friend Paige as they navigate the messy ups and downs of their junior year in high school—all while there’s a mystery arsonist on the loose.

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