drawn from television comedies, this 'heartland' comedy written by Jack Neo used a smattering of Singlish and Hokkien to make a realistic, easily identifiable drama about everybody's quest to make a quick buck. Made with less than S$1 million, it raked in S$5,800,000, making it the most commercially profitable local film to date. It also demonstrated the viable potential of Singapore's film industry. The next year would be a boom year for local films. Eight Singaporean feature films were made in 1999 alone, the most notable being Liang Po Po: The Movie (starring Jack Neo in a reprisal of his television cross-gender role), That One No Enough, the first directorial effect of Jack Neo, and Eating Air, made by film critic Kelvin Tong and film editor Jasmine Ng on a budget of S$800,000. Eating Air did not break even; That One No Enough barely did and only Liang Po Po: The Movie continued the vein of commercial success of Money No Enough, collecting S$3.03 million. 1999 also marked a watershed for Singapore films. Raintree Pictures, the filmmaking subsidiary of MediaCorp Productions, was started. Raintree Pictures invested in two regional co-productions, Liang Po Po and The Truth About Jane and Sam, which starred Singaporean television lead actress Fann Wong with Taiwanese singer Peter Ho and Hong Kong director Derek Yee. Raintree Pictures would finance a number of local and Hong Kong productions in years to come, and are the producer company of the films of Jack Neo. Subsequent productions, such as 2000 AD (2000) and The Tree (2001), also drew on Hong Kong star power; the company invested in critically acclaimed regional films such as The Eye (2002) and Infernal Affairs II (2003). Raintree Pictures also produced two English-language local productions, Chicken Rice War (2000) and One Leg Kicking (2001). With the financing of a local production company and the setting up of organisations such as the Singapore Film Commission (SFC, set up in 1998), budding filmmakers, especially independent ones, found it easier to make movies on subsidies and loaned funding. The advent of digital video also meant that some novice filmmakers could experiment with cheaper alternatives. Features like Stories about Love (2000) and Return to Pontianak (2001) were both shot on digital videos, even though they were not commercial successes. Early 2000s The success story since the turn of the 21st century must be from local comedian-turned-director Jack Neo. Financed