{"id":30274,"date":"2026-02-21T13:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=30274"},"modified":"2026-02-21T13:11:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:11:00","slug":"how-anthony-chens-we-are-all-strangers-captures-the-beauty-of-working-class-singapore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=30274","title":{"rendered":"How Anthony Chen\u2019s We Are All Strangers captures the beauty of working-class Singapore"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Art-house movie trilogies are rare beasts, and even rarer when they are unintended. \u201cI think it was completely accidental,\u201d says Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen of the 13-year odyssey to complete his \u201cGrowing Up\u201d trilogy.<\/p>\n

It began in 2013 with his debut Ilo Ilo<\/em><\/span>, the sensitive tale of a boy\u2019s bond with his domestic helper. The film won Chen the Camera d\u2019Or at Cannes, the prize awarded for best first feature. He followed it six years later with Wet Season<\/em><\/span>, in which a teacher finds herself drawn to her student.<\/div>\n

While Junyang falls for a girl from a well-to-do family that he meets at a BTS concert, the widowed Boon Kiat finds his own romance with Bee Hwa (Yeo Yann Yann), a Malaysian immigrant who hawks beer for a living.<\/p>\n

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\"Singaporean<\/div>
Singaporean director Anthony Chen at the photo call for the film We Are All Strangers during the Berlin International Film Festival on February 16, 2026. Photo: AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"(From<\/div>
(From left) Chen Tian Wen, Angeli Bayani, Yeo Yann Yann and Koh Jia Ler in a still from Anthony Chen\u2019s Ilo Ilo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While We Are All Strangers<\/em> and its predecessors share no characters or plot lines, the casting of Yeo and Koh bonds all three films. Koh was the child in Ilo Ilo<\/em>, Yeo his mother, before reuniting as student and teacher in Wet Season<\/em>. But Chen swears he never planned it this way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Art-house movie trilogies are rare beasts, and even rarer when they are unintended. \u201cI think it was completely accidental,\u201d says Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[8498,1869,8757,16152,22,2528,16153],"class_list":["post-30274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-anthony","tag-beauty","tag-captures","tag-chens","tag-singapore","tag-strangers","tag-workingclass","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}