From their admiration for the charming piano player crooning a dreamy love song in Hmone Shwe Yee (Glimmering Gold, Win Oo, 1970) to the sexy guitar-strumming heartthrob in Hnit Yauk Te Nay Kyin Tay (Let's Stay Together, U Tin Yu, 1962), Burmese audiences have compared Win Oo to both Elvis Presley and James Dean. Win Oo's active filmmaking career coincided with the years of Ne Win's repressive military governments: 1962–88. For those outside the country, much of what is written about the decades of the military regime has tended to focus on repression, conflict, and economic stagnation. For the Burmese public living during those years, the cinema offered a much needed escape, a chance to laugh and a space to fantasise. In addition to the movie screenings themselves, numerous fan magazines – their covers graced with posters and screen shots from the latest movies – enabled the public to follow the industry and their beloved stars. For many, Win Oo was a renaissance man of the Burmese socialist years: he starred in films, directed films, wrote screenplays, produced films, sang hit songs, and even wrote short stories and entire novels. Few in the history of popular entertainment could ever match his calibre of artistic talent and versatility.

Win Oo's notoriety and fame during those years is undeniable. However, it is essential to consider the ways in which the motion picture industry was constrained by both the economic as well as the ideological imperatives of the Ne Win government and its so-called ‘Burmese way to Socialism’. In the 1960s, the military government nationalised cinemas and instituted a stringent censor board. It sought to use the mimetic power of film to push its ideological agenda, emphasising Buddhist philosophical concepts, national unity, and what has been called Burmese-style socialist realism. But for Burmese audiences, it would be misleading to suggest that Win Oo embodied this government agenda. In one film history book, the period 1962–88 is described as ‘The Win Oo Era’ (2012: 77). Interestingly, the same twenty-six-year span directly coincides with the years in which General Ne Win was in power.