It's a Great Great World Screening

I won a pair of in-season passes for It's a Great Great World!... Finally I managed to get my tickets, as the show is selling like hot-cakes right now in the cinemas... I watched it with Baby @ GV Marina...

--- Poster of It's a Great Great World ---

Director Kelvin Tong's latest large-scale movie - It's a Great Great World. The setting of this movie was in the 1940s and spans a couple of generations from the 40s right up to the present day. The entire story revolves around Singapore's legendary Great World Amusement Park which was once known as Tua Seh Kai (in Hokkien it means 'great world').

'It's a Great Great World' tells the audience four stories... Each story bears a different signature component of Great World.

Worth my both thumbs up! This show is definitely a nostalgic trip down memory lane for many Singaporeans including myself...

Rating: 4.5/5

I had the pleasure of watching the screening all thanks to xinmsn.com & Golden Village Pictures.

~ Getting to know more about our very own Legendary Great World Amusement Park ~

Great World Amusement Park lighted up Singapore's nightlife in the 50s & 60s... which was commonly known as Tua Seh Kai in Hokkien by the locals. In the 1920s, this place was a chinese cemetery. The park started with a humble beginning as an amusement park in 1930s... There were free films and operas as well as wrestling and boxing matches... However business was bland and eventually was sold to the Shaw Brothers in 1941 just before World War II broke out.

During the Japanese Occupation, this park was transformed into a prison for Australian POWs. Later they were transferred so that the park could continue with its actitives which including gambling.

At the end of the Japanese Occupation, gambling was banned from Great World Amusement Park. Different dialects operas and shows featuring popular songs began to attract families to flock back to the park. The Shaws Brothers upgraded the park by conducting stall games (ti gum) and installed carnival rides including The Carousel and Ferris Wheel. The Ghost Train became the most famous attraction in the park.

In 1958, the park had a grand re-opening which coincided with Sky's (one of the theatres in the park) grand premiere that was graced by Elizabeth Taylor. During the heyday, the park's record attendance for a night was 50.000. Food was said to be excellent at Great World Amusement Park... Apart from the hawker selection, 'Wing Choon Yuen' became the household name serving Cantonese cuisine in Great World Amusement Park. This restaurant was famous for their suckling pig and sharks fin.

The boom period came to a standstill with the arrival of television, supermarkets and pasar malam (night-markets along the roadside) in the 1960s. Lesser and lesser people visited the park and it was closed down in 1964 but the cinemas and restaurants continued to run until 1978. Great World Amusement Park was finally closed for good after a property developer brought over for redevelopment in 1979.

The Great World City Shopping Centre along Kim Seng Road replaced the legendary Great World Amusement Park in 1997.

*** pixs courtesy by google search ***

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