Puteri Gunung Ledang....what tosh!

Went with a friend to watch the much-hyped about 'Puteri Gunung Ledang' ("PGL") - the Malaysian film industry's first attempt at a proper big-budget production. Officially, the producers of the film say they spent 15million making this movie, though rumour has it the final figure was closer to 20 million big ones......



So, the BIG question that needed an answer to was whether this movie was truly the sign of a turnaround in the film industry in the country. Up till now, the industry focused its efforts on small budget (though often over-hyped) productions using, ironically, pop and rock artistes as their 'stars', letting them loose on often mediocre storylines with shoddy acting and horrendous cinematography. It was often nothing more than marketing ploys to maximise exposure for big names in the local pop and rock circles.

The perfect example of this would be the last local film I watched - "ISKANDAR" - starring Awie, the local rock star. To say this movie sucked was an understatement. The acting was atrocious - wooden and unrealistic, and the plotline so predictable you didn't need a crystal ball to see what would come next.

But back to PGL. The story is basically premised on the Malay legend about Puteri Gunung Ledang (referred to in the movie by her Javanese name, Gusti Puteri), a mythical princess who falls in love with the Malaccan Sultanate's Admiral, Hang Tuah. In its original form, its a simple yet elegant tale about forbidden love between the admiral and the princess. Although accounts of the Malaccan empire are usually based on half facts and liberal doses of fantasy, its still a nice tale to tell.

However, the movie butchers this tale in alll its glory! Whats so bad about this movie? Hmmm....

Where do I even start?

Firstly, the inconsistencies......PGL, the character, is, by most accepted accounts, supposed to be a mythical figure - in the movie, the producers seemed like they couldn't decide to make her a mortal or a supernatural being - so they ended up making her a hybrid-Javanese princess who could teleport herself and communicate telepathically. Strike One!

Strike two for inconsistencies comes in the fact that someone obviously forgot to tell the producers that the timeline they chose to portray was blatantly off-tangent. Sultan Mahmud, a pivotal figure in the movie (as the Princess's suitor) took the throne in 1488AD. Majapahit, the Javanese empire from which the Princess hails from (at least in the movie) was already non-existant by 1478AD. Perhaps a historian should be on the payroll the next time Malaysian film makers decide to make a historical epic.

Then there's the much-hyped about sets. They say a good 1/2 of the budget for the movie was blown on elaborate sets. There's virtually no evidence of this in the movie. Set largely in the lush forests of Malaysia, theres barely need for elaborate sets here. The only obvious one was the representation of Malacca itself, and even this simple task was botched royally.

Malacca in the 1400's where this movie was set, was at its peak of its power. One would rightfully expect a bustling town at the very least. However, in the movie, Malacca is depicted as nothing but a small village in the middle of nowhere. The producers actually proclaimed proudly that they utilised CGI for the movie. But looking at the set representing Malacca, I seriously think the producers got shortchanged by the contractors who built Malacca for them. If they couldnt' build the sets well, the least they could do was CGI the city in...but nooooooo.....the Sultanate is nothing but a fishing village!

The set for the throne room was the movie's only set worthy of mention. It accurately portrayed the grandeur of a Sultan's seat of power even if the gold-leaf accents on the walls looked slightly tacky.

Then there was the acting! My God! The acting was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad! Tiara Jacquelina, who portrays the Princess, had all of 3 expressions - horny, goofy and pissed off. Which is heaps better than the bloke who played Hang Tuah - M. Nasir - who had all of ONE expression - just brooding. Thanks to the wooden acting, there was absolutely no on-screen chemistry between M.Nasir's character and Tiara's.


Tiara holding one of her 3 available expressions

The only people worth tagging the name "actor" to was Sofia Jane (who was 8 months pregnant at the time but her tummy was quite skillfully hidden) who played the Queen quite skillfully, and the actor who played the "Datuk Bendahara"....he was good.....both stood out by playing their roles well, using subtle yet masterful facial and body language that communicated their character's emotions well beyond their mediocre lines, no doubt written by a script writer during his lunch breaks over a cup of teh tarik.

But the brilliant acting of these two were just overshadowed by the horrid storyline, which was riddled with confusing flashbacks and PGL's annoying bouts of telepathic sex with Hang Tuah disguised as numerous frolics in bodies of water (suggesting she was "wet" perhaps?) and the unbelievably slow pace of the movie!

They tell me the original was 3.5 hrs long, which had one hour edited out. If I were the editor, I would have hacked the whole movie into a 30 minute short film, cos basically that was all the movie was worth, really. Often there's like a good 40 seconds of silence where Tuah and PGL "get it on" telepathically......I nearly died sitting in that cinema....I ended up sms-chatting just to stay awake!

If there's one area that PGL has shown progress in the industry is the quality of the cinematography. Well chosen locations and precisely metered lighting set the correct mood for most of the scenes. The quality of the sound was also worthy of mention - where Malaysian movies would normally have out-of-sync lip-synching for the actor's voices (they conventionally film movies here first and add the audio much later), PGL had what seemed to be live recorded sound, which was a major advancement in my opinion.

However, as a whole, one cannot help but feel shortchanged by this movie. I left the cinema thanking my lucky stars that I got a free ticket to watch this movie. If I had to pay RM 10 for this, I would have been seriously pissed off.....

If this represents the pinnacle of the Malaysian film industry, I'm saddened....truly saddened. what could have been a showcase of local talent has yet again fallen into the death trap of "too much hype, too little substance" that our film industry is so well known for.