Fridae

KRU studios has shown recently an ambition to be the successor to Cathay-Keris studio of the 50s and 60s. The studio’s popular offerings launched the careers of some of the greatest stars of Malay cinema such as Maria Menado, who married a Sultan, and S Roomai Noor and Siput Sarawak, the parents of Anita Sarawak. Their previous film Magika was not much more than a series of sketches featuring a ton of Malay folklore-based jokes, but it was cheerful, winning and provided modest fun.

The Malay Chronicles is far more accessible, and even more ambitious. While it draws from Malay folklore for its source material, it is also clearly aiming at the sword-and-sandal tradition of Hollywood, in particilar gorehounds that went crazy over 300, and the work of Robert E Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian.

Merong Mahwangsa, the titular hero of the film, is basically a Howardian free spirit. An honest, lusty, pantun-reciting warrior sailor, he will sire a line of Langkasukan Kings in Southeast Asia. Upon witness of his martial prowess in Goa, Merong Mahawangsa is talent-spotted by the Roman prince Marcus Caprenius (Gavin Stenhouse) and his general Lycius.

Merong thus takes Marcus to the Golden Chersonese (the old name for the Malay Peninsula) where he is to rendezvous with the Chinese fleet under the command of Admiral Liu (Craig Fong) and wed the Chinese princess (Jiang Lusi) before the evil Gerudans, led by the wizard-warrior Taji and his menacing henchman Kamawas, attack. Merong gets back in touch with his own heritage, which reaches back to Alexander the Great and somehow involves him also inheriting the plans for the weapons that Archimedes perfected during the siege of Syracuse.

Clearly, historical accuracy, authenticity or even consistency should be the last thing on your mind when you watch this historical epic. Nor even expecting the plot make much sense, with its all-you-can-eat buffet style of throwing in various tropes and themes from pulp adventure novels. The result is a clashing of various accents of English, numerous anachronisms and often unintentionally funny scenarios such as seeing a Roman prince listen at rapt attention to a Malay pantun spoken by a would-be king of Indian descent and asking what it means.

Meanwhile, prepare for long, gorehound-pleasing battle scenes featuring numerous variations on the slo-mo bloodletting and CGI generated arrows of 300 and Hero, an overblown score, and tons of portentous exclamations and hamming from nearly every member of the cast.

The Malay Chronicles (Guys like Alfian Sa’at will likely be waiting around the corner to tell me how inappropriate that title is since the Kedah Annals, from which the story of Merong Mahawangsa is taken is not part of the Sejarah Melayu, which is the more accurate direct translation of ‘Malay Chroncles’.) plays like a dinner theatre version of Conan the Barbarian, the story is trite, implausible and cliched, but the goofy earnestness with which it carries itself seems to make the film far more entertaining, both intentionally and not, than it should.