Annabel Chong

I still remember when Singapore first introduced R ratings for local cinemas in the early 1990s. It genuinely boggled the mind and I remember the titles vividly: Natural Born Killers, Pulp Fiction and, later, even The English Patient. Amongst my peers at school, it quickly became a race to see who might first acquire a bootlegged videotape from Johor Bahru and, in doing so, attain “hero” status for the week. The R rating functioned as both mystery and challenge, complete with its own mythology.