Tan Pin Pin's documentary To Singapore, with Love (2013) opens with a shot outside a London home. Inside, Ho Juan Thai, a former student leader now in his 60s, is cooking char kway teow with prawns, ‘quite different from the Singapore way of doing it’, he laughs. Ho left Singapore in 1977 when he was accused of inciting violence and has lived in the United Kingdom for over 35 years, unable to return to Singapore unless he answers for his past actions. The film offers an intimate portrait of the lives of nine Singaporeans similarly exiled from their home country during the 1960s and 1970s for their alleged involvement in Communist struggles during those decades. Some have not returned to Singapore for more than 50 years. Like other documentaries made by Tan, the subject of this film is Singapore: its people, their memories and their unquestionable devotion to their country despite its conflicts and contradictions. Shot in Thailand, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom, the film takes an external perspective as evidenced by the opening shot. In a statement released on To Singapore, with Love's Facebook page, Tan says: ‘Like my other films […] This film is a portrait of Singapore; unlike the others, it is shot entirely outside the country, in the belief that we can learn something about ourselves by adopting, both literally and figuratively, an external view’ (2014).