KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 — Malaysian actress Tong Bing Yu has ventured into producing with the founding of Marvelous Culture & Film.
Despite being a new kid on the block, Tong plans to collaborate on more projects with multiple international streaming platforms and initiate cooperation with the Film Development Association of Hong Kong and Macau.
She also aims to promote works worldwide and actively engage in cross-cultural communication.
To connect with China film production platforms and lead local artists into the international arena, Malaysia Marvelous Culture & Film has established a subsidiary in China called China Marvelous Culture & Film.
Since its establishment, they have been involved in productions such as Ming Dynasty, Entrepreneurial Age and Sword and Fairy 4.
Set up during the pandemic, Marvelous Culture & Film is driven by Tong’s belief that excellence can be achieved through the combined strength of different parties.
As regions began to reopen last year, Marvelous Culture & Film actively expanded its business that saw them collaborating on the co-production of the Hong Kong film Danger Point and co-produced Me Too which is expected to hit cinemas later this year.
Tong said every actor has a dream of becoming a filmmaker, but Malaysia, being a diverse and multicultural environment, has always faced significant competition in Mandarin-language productions.
“Actors’ development has also been limited due to market constraints,” said Tong at the company’s recent opening.
To counter that, Marvelous announced that it will provide creators opportunities to collaborate on investment and distribution.
It will also establish a venture capital platform, aiming to provide different stages of incubation and promotion for excellent film projects, striving to align the local film and television industry with the international market.
The first venture capital film supported by Marvelous is the film Sisters by emerging director Ernest Chong.
Tong said they welcome all the dream-driven creators to submit their works.
“We will select quality works every quarter, invest in them, and assist in incubating them into outstanding film and television works.”
Besides supporting local emerging filmmakers, Tong also announced key cooperation projects with various sectors.
“In the future, Marvelous will collaborate with international streaming platforms such as iQiyi under Cloud Cinema Premiere Program S, focusing on series such as Studying Antiques in University and The Detective, Macau Film Fund investment film Who Killed Her, 988 Chinese New Year film The Life Still Young, Malaysia-Hong Kong co-produced film Be a Rich Man and action film Prison Break. “
“We will also collaborate with local Malay production companies to invest in Malay films. We will also explore new cooperation projects with streaming platforms such as Tencent in the second half of the year.”
Tong also announced that China Marvelous Culture & Film will be bringing in film and television projects worth at least 30 million yuan (RM19.7 million) to be shot in Malaysia over the next three years.
Their subsidiary in Singapore, M Works Studios, will collaborate with Nanyang Ethnic Chinese Brothers Film to establish a mini-shooting base in the forest city to develop short video content.
Marvelous TV is also expected to broadcast imported short video content on the Presto APP in May, producing Malaysia travel programmes, Guizhou cultural and tourism selected content and enable content creators to monetise their work.
Marvelous Culture & Film will also collaborate with its subsidiary, BT Mediaspace, to operate various businesses such as event planning, brand marketing, concerts, short videos creation and artist management.
Tong said: “I am grateful to BT Media, Presto APP, Moth Studio, M Works Studio and China Marvelous Culture & Film for their collaboration. These partners have enabled us to bring together diverse business capabilities and steer the company towards diversified development.”
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