During the 1990s, Jack Neo won the local audience over with his signature comedic hosting style in variety programmes. Apart from hosting and acting then, he was the creative brain behind the longest running local and high rated variety show,
Comedy Night. The popularity of the decade-long production is a strong testament to Jack’s remarkable talents and creativity. Following his success in television productions, Director Neo took on new challenges and ventured into the film industry in 1998 with
Money No Enough (1998), Singapore’s 3rd highest grossing feature film to-date. Consequently, he scripted, directed and produced a successful string of coveted movies namely
I Not Stupid (2002),
Homerun (2003),
The Best Bet (2004), romantic comedy
I Do I Do (2005),
One More Chance (2005),
We Not Naughty (2012),
Ah Boys To Men (2012),
Ah Boys To Men 2 (2013) which is Singapore’s highest grossing feature film to-date, and many more.
Besides garnering record high box office earnings, Jack Neo’s later works drew much regional and International attention. Among his well-commented works,
Homerun (2003) won the first international movie award for Singapore. A total of six international awards were honoured to the movie including the International Kids Film Festival Of Home Iran 2003’s “Best Director" title. In recognition of his achievements and contributions towards Singapore’s media industry, Jack Neo was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999 and Multi-Talent Award in 2004 from MediaCorp Singapore in the Star Awards. He also received the Public Service Medal Award in August 2004 and the Arts Cultural Medallion Award in October 2005.
In 2016, to celebrate Singapore’s 50th anniversary, Jack shot
Long Long Time Ago 1 & 2, with a budget of SGD$5 million for both parts of the film. The movies accurately depict the hard life of Singaporeans in the early days. In 2017, he released the fourth installment of
Ah Boys to Men in celebration of 50 years of military national service in Singapore.