Long Long Time Ago 2

Plot

Continuing from Long Long Time Ago, Zhao Di takes over her family farm with the help of Ah Long after the 1969 floods. After the government started reclaiming land for development in 1977, licensed owners like Zhao Di are compensated but her brother accuses her of having an affair with Ah Long to get the money for himself. Osman does not approve his son playing in a rock band as he fears the negative influence, causing his son to run away from home. Meanwhile, Ah Hee and Rani decide to get married but their traditional parents object their marriage.

Cast

Filming

The film was filmed in Ipoh, Malaysia, especially in Kampung Cina Pusing together with the first part, starting in May 2015 over 60 days.

While filming a scene of a sister rescuing her younger brother from a toilet he is stuck in, director Jack Neo insisted on a close-up shot of real faeces to show audiences what toilets in the 1960s were really like. For historical accuracy, Neo also requested actress Aileen Tan to grow her armpit hair for a brief show of it when her character, wearing a sleeveless blouse, raises her arms to tie her hair while working at a coal mine.

The scene of Ah Kun (Mark Lee) slapping his niece and nephew is real. The actors did over ten takes.

Familiar to Vasantham Central viewers, Bahrathi Rani plays Rani in her first non-Tamil production.

Critical reception

Reception was mostly negative.

John Lui of The Straits Times gave the film 2.5/5. He praised the "personal" "small moments" but criticised how "what little authenticity that can be glimpsed is buried under a treacly layer of television-style drama". In addition, he found that "[a]lmost every moment is freighted with moral significance, heavily underscored by dialogue and music" and "[f]or all the suffering, shame and strife baked into the story, there's little inner life to the characters".

Rating the film 2/5, Whang Yee-ling of 8 Days noted that Jack Neo "seems emotionally and creatively depleted after putting much of his heart into writing-directing Long Long Time Ago" and that "even Neo's ear for vernacular humour fails him, and the Hokkien exchanges are strained". She also criticised the film's "simplistic lessons on racial harmony in addition to intergenerational strife". She concluded, "The story is merely marking time, the characters remaining one-note types over the decade".

Similarly, Yahoo! News Singapore found Long Long Time Ago 2 "not as good" as its first part, giving it a score of 3.5/5. While praising the film's "[c]ompelling family drama" and "refreshing take on relationships in Singapore", they noted that it "doesn’t provide the proper cathartic resolution to the many conflicts that arise", with "[t]oo many characters and plots to keep track of", "blatant product placement" and a "downer" of a "weak resolution".

Jeremy Sing of SINdie found the "discrepancy" in the two parts "so great", with Part Two filled with "preachiness, television-style histronics... in-your-face product placements" and "a paper-thin plot". While he praised the film for "bravely tackling a sensitive topic" of the interracial marriage between Ah Hee and Rani, Sing criticised the overall "weak plot development, characterisation, trite direction and its propensity to ‘teach’ the audience what we were supposed to gather from the film".

Box office

Long Long Time Ago 2 was second in the Singapore box office to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in its opening week. It has earned S$1.06 million to date.

Sequels

Director Jack Neo and Ng Say Yong, chief content officer of mm2 Entertainment, have planned for four instalments for Long Long Time Ago, but production of part 3 and 4 depends on the box office results of the first two films.

Neo claims he still has many more stories from 1978 to 2016 to explore.