Eine Liebe in der Stadt des Löwen (TV Movie 2009) Poster

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4/10
Forgettable romantic movie Warning: Spoilers
This film is about a woman who plans to move to Singapore with her boyfriend when she catches him kissing an ex-girlfriend. Nonetheless she movies to Asia and brings her mother along. Kürner plays one of these usual characters whop are just too perfect to be true. And they are always the same. Emancipated, smart, independent, caring and loved by everybody, especially children. I cannot eat as much as I want to throw up with these kind of characters. It is 6 years old and runs for the usual slightly under 90 minutes. It is basically what you can expect if you take a look at the filmmaker trio's long history of gooey nonsense romance movies. One of the worst things here are probably the voice-over parts from the mother, early on, but also the very final scene. Interestingly enough, the mother and daughter in this movie are also mother and child in real life. You would guess that this close bond could help the movie and make it more authentic, but not really. The script and the dialogs are really pretty bad occasionally here. for example the man calls the woman he kisses just a previous tenant. Well, if he is the apartment, then that is certainly correct. Also the production is a mess. The main character is a music teacher and there are scenes when we hear violin sounds, but it is clearly visible that the children playing are not making music as there is a large gap between their bows and the instruments. They are just touching the air.

Another embarrassing scene is that her love interest is obviously the only guy during class who wears a suit. Or why would they randomly accept a complete stranger into an important cricket game to represent their enterprise? I will tell you why. So that the two men who battle for her heart could actually go against each other in an athletic competition. Really unrealistic here and this is, at times, so bad it should just not be made. Singapore is an interesting country and deserves a film like "Lost in Translation" to feature it and not a piece of crap like this movie. The ending was terrible too. Of course they had to include a dramatic departure sequence where that Asian guy needs to catch her and the two will miss out on their true love. Cry me a river. We all know that she will not leave before the two become a couple. By the way, have you ever thought about the term "romantic comedy"? In here, there is nothing really romantic which touches you and there are even less really funny sequences, if there are any at all. Or if this is more of a drama, then you are certainly right by saying that there is no convincing drama in these 85 minutes. Not recommended.
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Love In The City of Lion
meliajanssen31 May 2009
Warning: Spoilers
As a born & bred Singaporean, I was intrigued by the title and the producers' choice to film the movie in Singapore. However, I couldn't help feeling that it was more of a 'product placement' for touristy Singapore with the locations being in the typical tourist spots like Chinatown and Arab Street. It would seem logical that the German lead actress would be seen going in and around the touristy spots as it was her first time in Singapore but for a Singaporean watching it, it feels tacky.

I understand that the movie was made for a German audience but they ought to know that Singapore's first language is English and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who speaks German as fluently as the local actors do (although I think their voices were overdubbed as I am pretty sure Wong Lilin doesn't sound they way she does when speaking German).

All in all, it was a decent piece of Sunday television and nice for Europe-based Singaporeans like me.
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