Movie Review: Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa a.k.a.The Malay Chronicles: Bloodlines

I just had to watch this local film 3 weeks after the premiere. It’s the most ambitious Malay film to date, and the fact that >70% of it in English, adds even more intrigue. I give kudos to KRU’s Yusri for putting his heart and soul in producing an epic film so rare nowadays in the Malaysian movie industry.

The premise of the movie is fascinating also, set in 120A.D. a Roman prince meets his Chinese princess bride in the Golden Chersonese, or now known as the Malay Peninsula to strengthen the ties between Rome and China. The titular character, Merong is the captain who escorts the price through the treacherous waters. Have you ever seen Imperial Rome and Imperial China in the same movie before? Well, there’s a first for everything.

Where should I start? The storyline has got to be the crown jewel of this movie. The dialogues were beautifully written both in Malay and English, exuding an aura of the ancient times and a sense of a swashbuckling adventure. The English dialogue had a standard Hollywood feel to it, and that’s a good thing. In contrast the Malay narrative and the Malay scenes in Merong’s homeland had a classic Malay movie feel.

The mainly foreign cast (enlisted from the UK) masterfully used their lines to carve out their characters. With all these cheap actors, I was surprised they didn’t suck. Gavin Stenhouse who stood out as the Roman prince did a good job. The exception is the Chinese admiral played by Craig Fong who had overacted his role I fear.

There is romance in this movie both between the Roman prince and his Chinese princess and well as Merong and his future queen. But the romance scenes are short and more importantly not cheesy. And like every movie these days, there is a smidgen of humour.

Nevertheless, the script has its minuses. The source material relate to stories about the birth of an ancient Malay kingdom, is highly steeped in folklore and magic. For example, Merong is supposed to have fought the Garuda, a bird larger than any flying creature alive today, but I suppose converting the mythical bird into a pirate kingdom allows for grandiose battle scenes.

Infusing magical elements into the movie is understandable, but science fiction? In the final battle, Merong has crafted a weapon out of mirrors based on design from Archimedes himself. The prince called it the “Archimedes Death Ray”, and yes it is as ill-suited and embarrassing as it sounds in the movie. But other from that, I find the plot fast paced and consistent with a slower contemplative middle section to build up Merong’s character as he becomes King of his long lost homeland.

KRU obviously spent some money on creating beautiful panoramic location scenes with CGI, and it really paid off too though the CG is a tad noticeable. However there’s something that he should have paid more for, and that's the battle scenes. Clearly he didn’t hire Yuen Woo-ping or Jackie Chan, or anyone close.

And while most of the main characters played their parts right, the last gripe I have about the movie is about the extras, their lack of acting skills and the fact that they couldn’t get enough Westerners depicting the Romans. So what you see are a few of Asian-looking Romans in togas and centurion costumes, and yup I noticed.

From what I understand, HMM gross earnings to date more than equalled its production costs. While this epic film is definitely a step up from its predecessor ‘Puteri Gunung Ledang’, it’s not without its faults but I can only hope this is a beginning for more big budgeted Malaysian movies to come.