Writer: Nor Azliany Mohamad

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Watch this if you liked: “Ong Bak”, “Pirates Of The Carribean”, “Queen Of Langkasuka”

Watching this heavily-marketed KRU epic, ("The Malay Chronicles: Bloodlines" to other markets) is like watching a Thai movie with the special effects of a Hollywood production. Full of action, mythical characters and props from another time, the movie took two years to complete, as revealed by the movie's director Yusry Abdul Halim, calling it the most challenging ever for him.

At the cost of some RM 8 million (which KRU Studios head honcho Norman Abdul Halim said was barely enough!) the movie will be hailed as the most expensive Malaysian-made movie of all time, next to "Puteri Gunung Ledang" in 2004. It was shot over 52 days in various places like Kuala Lumpur, Kuantan and Pulau Perhentian.

"Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa" under the direction of Yusry has successfully brought variation and marked improvement on the CGI aspects that KRU Studios used to be scrutinised over. It also benefits from having martial arts expert Chan Man Cheong aboard (responsible for the action sequence in blockbuster movie like "Hell Boy 2", "Rush Hour" and "Police Story") and other consultants must have done a decent job to get the period details right. The props and main set consisted of just the 2nd Century Malay village, the piers and some palaces, while the rest were computer-generated.

It is by and large a rather impressive movie, although the movie appears quite "dark" in terms of lighting, to which the director has responded in a press conference by explaining that it was done to reflect two different situations. With a line-up featuring Stephen Rahman Hughes, Jing Lu, Gavin Stenhouse, Hendrik Norman, Rahim Razali, Wan Hanafi Su, Ummi Nazeera, Khir Rahman, Craig Fong, Nell Ng and many more, it is definitely something every Malaysian should watch to see how far we've come.

Do watch out for some rather inappropriate dialogue though - when Khir Rahman's Kamawas character tries to seduce Jing Lu's Meng Li Hua Chinese princess character. You have to forgive this particularly cringe-worthy moment and look at the bigger picture - which is in essence a good, entertaining movie.

Cinema Online, 09 March 2011