MAY 23 ― It was only last week that I wrote about the increasing variety of films available in Malaysian cinemas, which is actually much better than most people think it is.

I even managed to list five films currently playing last week that are worthy of your attention, which didn’t even include sure-fire hits like Pitch Perfect 2 and Spy. The only blockbuster on that list was Mad Max: Fury Road while the other four are a mixture of genre films, independent films and a star-studded auteur comedy. Not bad for a film distribution scene that most people think only serves blockbuster fodder.

As if to prove my point even further, the distributors have served up even more variety this week, as I find myself in the giddy position of being able to recommend another five films currently playing in Malaysian cinemas that might just interest you, dear reader.

If my list last week has a more populist slant to it as a result of having an action blockbuster, two horror films, an old fashioned rom-com and an all out romance on it, my list this time around will be a bit more esoteric. How and why is it so, you ask? Well, read on and find out!

Big Game

My Number One  pick for your cinema viewing pleasure this week is this one, Jalmari Helander’s follow up to his cult hit Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.

Following the footsteps of Dead Snow 2, Helander has opted to make what is essentially an English language film, with only a little bit of the dialogue in Finnish as it is set in Finland and is technically a Finnish film.

Onni Tommila again stars in this one, this time as a 13-year-old boy in a long and proud family line of hunters, who’s about to undergo a coming of age ritual on the eve of his 13th birthday by going hunting solo and bringing back a big game to prove that he’s now a man.

Matters get complicated considerably when he finds the President of the USA (gamely played by Samuel L. Jackson) in the jungle, being hunted by a bunch of terrorist psychos. Smart, silly and hugely entertaining, this one’s perfect for the whole family.

Bombay Velvet

It’s a minor miracle to be able to see an Anurag Kashyap film in Malaysian cinemas. A regular at various international film festivals and even managing a Cannes hit with his epic Gangs Of Wasseypur from two years ago, he has now made his most mainstream film to date, not exactly Indian mainstream but more like Hollywood mainstream with little touches of masala as Bombay Velvet pays tribute to the gangster classics of 1930s and the gangster films of Martin Scorsese.

Heck, he even got Scorsese’s editor, Thelma Schoonmaker (who edited all of Scorsese’s films from Raging Bull onwards) to edit the film, which is no mean feat for a Hindi film.

With no traditional Bollywood song and dance sequence, plenty of hard hitting violence and some glorious bits of gunplay, it’s definitely one heck of a Hollywood calling card.

Tomorrowland

Brad Bird can make any film he wants and I’d happily go and see it, no questions asked, such is the goodwill that he’s managed to gather for making modern classics like The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

Tomorrowland, his latest film, is already being called the most Disney-spirited film of all Disney films, as it homes in on exactly what made the Disney brand so enchanting ― the love and perpetuation of boundless imagination.

As meticulously conceived and designed as all his other films, with some superb world building and character buildup, the film is only slightly let down by a narrative resolution that doesn’t quite convince.

Jendela

Surely the most prolific director currently working in Malaysian cinema, averaging at least 2 to 3 films per year for the last 2 years or so, M. Subash has strangely been unmentioned by most local film enthusiasts, probably because he mostly works in the horror genre, which is often associated with crap standards when it comes to Malaysian horror movies.

Usually working with what looks like pitiful budgets, Subash has now come up with his boldest experiment yet, Jendela, which is promoted as Malaysia’s first silent feature film. If you think a silent film is already a bold experiment here, check this out ― the film has only ONE actor in it, Ruminah Sidek.

Partly successful but also partly a failure (there’s only so much weepy face that one can take, and unfortunately that’s the only expression on Ruminah Sidek’s face for most of the film), Jendela would’ve been a pretty good short film, as it does have a cleverly conceived narrative gambit. Still, go see it and be part of Malaysian film history.

Gangnam Blues

Korean gangster films don’t get played in Malaysian cinemas that often, so if you’re a fan of A Dirty Carnival and Once Upon A Time In High School then you’ll need to see this one pronto, as it is director Yoo Ha’s latest film and reportedly the closing chapter to that loose gangster trilogy.

A story about two orphan brothers living in poverty who later get sucked into a local gang, and later separated into rival gangs, it’s definitely Yoo Ha’s most slick and technically accomplished film so far, with a lovely mud drenched brawl at a funeral being the highlight. With Korean heartthrobs Lee Min Ho and Kim Rae Won as the two orphans, the girls are probably lining up to see this one already.

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.