| You Mean the World to Me | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Saw Teong Hin |
| Screenplay by | Saw Teong Hin |
| Based on | Hai Ki Xin Lor 2014 stage play by Saw Teong Hin |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Christopher Doyle |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Good Move Media [1] |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | Malaysia |
| Language | Penang Hokkien |
You Mean the World to Me (Chinese :海墘新路; Tâi-lô: Hái-Kînn Sin-Lōo) is a 2017 Malaysian semi-autobiographical drama film directed and written by Saw Teong Hin, based on his stage play. The film, set in 1970s Penang, [1] is the first Malaysian film that is entirely in Penang Hokkien. [3] The film's Chinese name, 海墘新路 (Hái-Kînn Sin-Lōo), refers to a Hokkien nickname for Victoria Street in George Town, Penang.
The film's script was written based on Saw's family history and his estranged relationship with his mother. [4] After the script was finished, Saw had desires of turning it into a film but lacked enough money to do so. He presented the script to several parties who were interested in the project but they had conditioned that the film be made in Mandarin instead, to which Saw refused. [5] Thus, he decided that the script be made into a stage play first. The play, under the name of Hai Ki Xin Lor, was held in 2014 during the George Town Festival to receptive audiences. [5] [6] The success of the play helped open doors for him to get funds to turn the play into a feature film. [7]
The film's theme song, "感謝妳 (Kám-siā Lí/Kám-siā Lú)" was performed by Taiwanese singer Chao Chuan. [8]
| Year | Award | Category | Recipient(s) and nominee(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 29th Malaysia Film Festival [9] | Best Screenplay | Saw Teong Hin | Won |
| Best Music Score | David Koon Wei Gee | Won | ||
| Best New Actor | John Tan | Won |
Penang is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia along the Strait of Malacca. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the Malay Peninsula. These two halves are physically connected by the Penang Bridge and the Second Penang Bridge. The state shares borders with Kedah to the north and east, and Perak to the south.
George Town is the capital of the Malaysian state of Penang. It is the core city of the George Town Conurbation, Malaysia's second largest metropolitan area with a population of 2.84 million and the second largest metropolitan economy in the country. The city proper spans an area of 306 km2 (118 sq mi) encompassing Penang Island and surrounding islets, and had a population of 794,313 as of 2020.
Penang Hokkien is a local variant of Hokkien spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is spoken natively by 63.9% of Penang's Chinese community, and also by some Penangite Indians and Penangite Malays.
Malaysian Chinese, Chinese Malaysians, or Sino-Malaysians are Malaysian citizens of Han Chinese ethnicity. They form the second-largest ethnic group in Malaysia, after the Malay majority, and constitute 22.4% of the Malaysian total population. Today, Malaysian Chinese form the second largest community of Overseas Chinese in the world, after the Thai Chinese. Malaysian Chinese maintain a significant and substantial presence in the business sector of the Malaysian economy.
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Philippine Hokkien is a dialect of the Hokkien language of the Southern Min branch of Min Chinese descended directly from Old Chinese of the Sinitic family, primarily spoken vernacularly by Chinese Filipinos in the Philippines, where it serves as the local Chinese lingua franca within the overseas Chinese community in the Philippines and acts as the heritage language of a majority of Chinese Filipinos. Despite currently acting mostly as an oral language, Hokkien as spoken in the Philippines did indeed historically have a written language and is actually one of the earliest sources for written Hokkien using both Chinese characters as early as around 1587 or 1593 through the Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china and using the Latin script as early as the 1590s in the Boxer Codex and was actually the earliest to systematically romanize the Hokkien language throughout the 1600s in the Hokkien-Spanish works of the Spanish friars especially by the Dominican Order, such as in the Dictionario Hispanico Sinicum (1626-1642) and the Arte de la Lengua Chiõ Chiu (1620) among others. The use of Hokkien in the Philippines was historically influenced by Philippine Spanish, Filipino (Tagalog) and Philippine English. As a lingua franca of the overseas Chinese community in the Philippines, the minority of Chinese Filipinos of Cantonese and Taishanese descent also uses Philippine Hokkien for business purposes due to its status as "the Chinoy business language" [sic]. It is also used as a liturgical language as one of the languages that Protestant Chinese Filipino churches typically minister in with their church service, which they sometimes also minister to students in Chinese Filipino schools that they also usually operate. It is also a liturgical language primarily used by Chinese Buddhist, Taoist, and Matsu veneration temples in the Philippines, especially in their sutra chanting services and temple sermons by monastics.
Kapitan China Chung Keng Quee was the founder and administrator of modern Taiping in Perak, Malaysia. Appointed "Capitan China" by the British in 1877, he was a millionaire philanthropist and known as an innovator in the mining of tin. He was involved in many other industries including farming, pawnbroking and logging. He was respected by both Chinese and European communities in the early colonial settlement. His survival in the chaotic era owes much to his standing as leader of the Hai San, a Chinese secret society in British Malaya during the time of the Larut Wars (1862–73), a position he is said to have held until early 1884, although in all probability he continued to remain a leading member. The old fort at Teluk Batu was built by him to safeguard the mine that he opened there.
Yeo is a Chinese, English, and Korean surname.
Chung Ling High School is a secondary school in George Town, Penang, Malaysia. It was initially established in 1917 as a primary school, and later became a junior high school in 1923, becoming the oldest extant Chinese high school in Malaysia. Following the merger of The Chinese High School in Singapore in 2005, Chung Ling High School became the oldest surviving Chinese high school in Southeast Asia.
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Hokkien is a variety of the Southern Min languages, native to and originating from the Minnan region, in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is also referred to as Quanzhang, from the first characters of the urban centers of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.
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Hokkien, a variety of Chinese that forms part of the Southern Min family and is spoken in Southeastern China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, does not have a unitary standardized writing system, in comparison with the well-developed written forms of Cantonese and Standard Chinese (Mandarin). In Taiwan, a standard for Written Hokkien has been developed by the Ministry of Education including its Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwan Minnan, but there are a wide variety of different methods of writing in Vernacular Hokkien. Nevertheless, vernacular works written in Hokkien are still commonly seen in literature, film, performing arts and music.
Sibelle Hu is a Taiwanese actress, singer and TV personality who starred in both Taiwanese and Hong Kong movies. She acted in many movies in the 1980s and 1990s and retired in the late 1990s.
Penangite Chinese are ethnic Chinese Malaysians of full or partial Chinese ancestry who either hail from or live within the State of Penang. As of 2020, 45% of Penang's population belonged to the Chinese ethnic group, making ethnic Chinese the largest ethnic community within the state.
Saw Teong Hin is a Malaysian film director, best known for directing the Malay language epic fantasy film Puteri Gunung Ledang and You Mean the World to Me, the first Malaysian film filmed entirely in Hokkien.

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