Sing to the Dawn is a popular 1975 novel by Ho Minfong, which was turned into a stage musical by Dick Lee in 1996. Now made into a movie musical, the somewhat old-fashioned story revolves around Dawan, a young village girl who wins a scholarship to study in a city school. This sparks off sibling rivalry with her brother Kai, who wants the scholarship too. The tension gets worse when Dawan's father feels that his daughter is too young to go to the city...

Produced by Singapore production houses Raintree Pictures and Infinite Frameworks, Sing to the Dawn suffers from a similar problem as previous Singaporean animations Zodiac: The Race Begins and Legend of the Sea. The cartoon characters are just too stiff and wax figure-like to measure up to the standards of animation that Hollywood has popularized with Toy Story, Ratatouille, Madagascar and many more.

Young kids may find the cartoon watchable. But we doubt anyone above 14 would want to watch this.