With an intelligent mixture of gorgeous art direction and complex psychological perspectives, Royston Tan has probably created the most mature and accomplished Singapore feature production to date. Its 'international' feel goes in tandem with the local tastes and could find more fans abroad. Those who had the privilege of viewing Tan's most prominent feature, 15, might have found it overrated due to its controversy. But with his latest bow, you owe it to yourselves to witness more from arguably Singapore's most talented auteur.
Review by MOVIE EXCLUSIVE Justin Deimen

Beautifully composed shots and the director's evident love of his subject allows the film to drive home the sense of estrangement and the essential heroism of a boy forced to withdraw within himself.
Ho Lian-Yi , The New Paper

Black movie film festival.
A film that refuses language, dialogue, any form of communication other than body language. And above all - via a masterly production that sends the spectator back to his/her own experience of solitude - the unique capacity of cinema to communicate. A film that plumbs the depths to unearth a magnificent light.

难忘的寂寞，必看的电影
Eista Lee, Lianhe Zaobao

 
超出想象的深厚感情，渗入肺腑， 令人深思。
Francis Ng, RSI & Good Morning Singapore
 
这是一部静谧而又忧伤的电影。所有伤逝的千言万语 "静 "在不言中。
Wayne Lim, You-weekly

A melancholic expression of solitude, a subtle search of solace in suppression.
孤寂在 4： 30大声喧闹，受伤的心灵，寻找缺席的慰藉，情感压抑
Ng Seok Khoong, RSI

Barcelona Asian Film Festival
With just two characters, minimal dialogue and mostly shot in ill-lit interiors, Singaporean Royston Tan has filmed a story of solitudes where what matters is the distilling of emotions through gestures, expressions and small details. As he had already done in 15, Tan again focuses on an adolescent world disconnected from society, but this time in a much more intimate fashion.

活力比蔡明亮多,現實比王家衛強,萬料不到這兩個照面換來一個新加坡的11歲殘酷物語。
Hong Kong International Film Festival

Creating powerful visual metaphors of solitude seems one of Tan's gifts in 4:30.
Greencine Daily

4:30 is quiet and reflective. A big hit at the recent Singapore Film Festival, it has served to cement Tan's position as a leading young director with an acute ability to observe the world and translate those observations into captivating cinema.
CNN

4:30 with it's confident handling of pacing and sophisticated visual style, marks a maturation in Tan's storytelling. There is as much a story about mood and it is an exploration of growing up.
Ong Sor Fern, The Straits Times

The narrative slides towards a melancholy that hints a deep emotional
pain underlaying the film's opening good humor.
Variety

Panorama's festival director Margaret Von Schiller, in praising 4:30,said it
was a film "of great patience...The tones and details of the film drew me in and it is one of my favourite films in Berlinale".

"it's always good to discover talent. 4:30 is a very well crafted film," he
says of the movie, which stars Singaporean Xiao Li Yuan and Korean Kim Young
Jun.
Siff – Philip Cheah