Malysian Movies...

I just bought Puteri Gunung Ledang (the Princess of Mount Ledang, to translate it nicely) from - of all places - KFC. Yep, the fast food frachise. It seems the people at Enfinity Productions thought it good to sell the original disk at eating stores of *ahem, ahem* respectable quality, to try and curb piracy. Pretty good idea. Sure had me buying.

Anyway, let's get back to the movie. It was supposed to be the biggest Malaysian production ever with production costs at about 30 million Ringgit (cough, cough - poor us. Compared to foriegn productions of about 200 million dollars or more, i'd say we're cheapskates) But i bought it eagerly, wanting to see how local filmakers were faring. *FYI, the malaysian film industry is dominated by western films and (recently) Japanese horror films. The loacal one are of mostly puke quality. The film was true to the period, which was during the Melaka Sultanate, and was very accurate with the various scenic locations. Nice. Acting was fairly moderate though. Are all princesses of that time supposed to move in slow-mo? And what's with the fake yelling when Demak attacked Majapahit? Tsk, tsk. Other than that it was okay, with lovely music (did i say lovely? Oops. Slip of tongue there. I meant good - I didn't particularly like the Javanese string melodies. Sounded like coarse guitars.) It was definitely the best Malaysian film i saw so far. Made me a fan. Can't wait for future productions.

If i had the chance to create a movie.... well let's see who i'd pick for a cast......

The production crew, everything from director to CGI editor will be Chinese. They're the best and most well educated. But a mental note to cut down on shouting Cantonese.

The music team can be of any race. As long as they don't pick melodies of sandpaper.

The lead? Hmm. Tough one. I'm tempted to choose Chinese (biased, i am. Bad, bad boy), but i know for a fact that's not universally accepted. Some would puke the instant they see the face. Best pick's a person of mixed origin - good looks all around.

Lead female? Either Indian or Chinese, for sure. Both races speak good English, and the indians already have a firm hold in the entertainment industry, anyway. And they look nice.

But how about the malays? *gasps in horror* I forgot them! No i didn't. They're saved for PR. Best ppl at the business. Most charming and polite. Its ingrained in their culture, you know.....
And since this is a Malaysian film we've no choice but to ask Siti Norhaliza to sing a song or two for the soundtrack. Sigh. Its all for the sales........

Tongues and lips

Yesterday i was at a training session for a Christian event; something called 'Kid's Games'. If your eyebrows are up its basically a 3 day thing where you get kids from allover to gather and learn about God through games. Sounds weird? It's pretty effective at teaching lessons, in fact. And the games are awesome. Total fun.

But what got to me was when we broke up in groups of about five to pray for the event and ask for blessing. After some squabbling about what we should pray for (and who should pray first!) we started off - with me. I had just begun, and this guy from some rural (or far off) church (St James, actually - never heard of it) was suddenly praying in tongues. I nearly choked on my prayer. I was shocked. I mean, the ppl in my church who can speak tongues are adults, and even then that's impressive by itself. And this guy's still in school!! I was like "wow!" and stuttered on my words. Not very good actually. I lost track of what i was saying and nearly messed up the prayer. Talk about disruptions.....