OCTOBER 21 — It’s been a pretty depressing year for Malaysian films, with both box office takings and quality taking a pretty big nosedive.
Audiences generally stayed away from cinemas and just waited for the films to come out on home video or VOD, that is if they even wanted to the check the films out in the first place.
An unexpected bright light was Abang Long Fadil 2, which has now overtaken Polis Evo as Malaysia’s all-time box-office champ with RM18.1 million and still counting.
An even brighter and sexier light also came and went, in the form Ho Yuhang’s latest film K, which unfortunately didn’t become the hit that it deserved to be (since it is actually a revenge action thriller with plenty of excitement to keep audiences entertained).
Due to my pretty crazy schedule lately, I unfortunately missed out on The Farm, a local Tamil slasher film, which makes it a real rarity in the local film scene, so hopefully a home video release is forthcoming because I’d hate to be missing out entirely on what looks like a legit local genre flick.
Catching up on the latest Malaysian films during their cinema run isn’t as easy as it sounds, you know?
But recently there does seem to be a sliver of hope with Kabir Bhatia’s latest film Bisik Pada Langit (which I unfortunately missed out on as well) earning some surprisingly strong word-of-mouth, resulting in a pretty healthy run in Malaysian cinemas, with box office takings of RM2.2 million so far.
And now comes two Malaysian films that I’ve been excitedly waiting for: Tombiruo: Penunggu Rimba and Shuttle Life.
‘Tombiruo: Penunggu Rimba’
An adaptation of novelist Ramlee Awang Murshid’s hit novel (which I have not read before), this Seth Larney-directed film (with strong but unconfirmed rumours that local legend Nasir Jani, of Kembara Seniman Jalanan fame, co-directed it) was a very pleasant surprise indeed for yours truly.
Instead of going the prestige picture route that a lot of local novel adaptations usually take, Larney basically decided to make a modern-day superhero movie out of the novel, and guess what, it works!
Long story short, it’s about an orphan boy named Ejim, born with a disfigured face but somehow blessed and protected by the forest, which means he’s got some sort of superpower.
An unfortunate encounter with a logging company leads to the death of someone important to him, and also someone important on the side of that company, which then neatly sets off the film’s dual revenge plot and lovely message of forgiveness, love and acceptance. What’s most impressive about the film for me is how neat and well-structured the plot and story beats are, down to the misdirections and twists that lay ahead for the audience. It is nothing fancy, but it has a gravitas and seriousness that will remind you of the tragic grandiose of good and great superhero flicks like Captain America: Civil War and the Sam Raimi-helmed Spider-Man films.
Yes, despite the beautiful lensing, the CGI and fight scenes can sometimes make you cringe, and the acting is let down by some seriously unconvincing Sabahan accents, but the earnestness of the whole thing will still win you over and take you along for the ride. As that famous sports brand likes to put it, once you watch this film and just surrender to its charms, you’re all in.
‘Shuttle Life’
I first took notice of Tan Seng Kiat’s low key yet beautifully judged debut film Shuttle Life when I heard that it was part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. It has since then also won a Special Jury Prize at this year’s Festival Filem Malaysia, so hopefully that will at least result in more curious bums in seats for its current cinema run here.
Belonging to the quiet and humanist tradition of Malaysian indie filmmakers like Liew Seng Tat and Ho Yuhang, Shuttle Life tells the story of Qiang, a young man struggling to provide for his family, which consists of a mentally-ill mother and a very adorable little sister. Where this one differs slightly from its Malaysian predecessors is that it borrows a very useful trick from the Dardenne brothers’ playbook, in that it then becomes a ‘mission’ movie a la the Dardennes’ Rosetta, Two Days One Night and even their recent film The Unknown Girl.
Something happens to Qiang’s family which left him with no choice but to go on a quest to look for something, kind of like the quest for that stolen bicycle in The Bicycle Thieves. Yet this is not just another neo-realist film. It’s an undoubtedly angry film, but with the anger cleverly smuggled into or disguised by both the events of the narrative and the setup of its milieu. It’s got such an open and rich fountain of meaning that I really don’t want to spoil the film for you by describing anything more than what is enough to give you an idea of what the film is like, so this is as far as I’ll go writing about the film.
Let me just finish by saying that this is a film that will make you think, maybe even force you to do so. So if that sounds like an enticing proposition, then what are you doing still reading this? Go and see the damn film, will ya?
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
