So I've been waiting for the Malaysian film industry to die a natural death in the hopes that I could contribute to its rebuilding cycle.
Now, though, I'm not sure I should. All the movies I've been involved in have won multiple awards and some didn't do too badly at the box office, especially in retrospect. However, without financial security or creative control over stuff I write for the film industry, I doubt that I could do much of a difference.
Here are some of my ideas I'm going to try pitch anyway to develop on my own. I'm just putting them out here for fun.
1. Nuklear
Nuklear is about a guy who believes that if he's happy for five minutes, he'd be sad for five minutes. Since he could remember, every time he's happy, a man in a white suit appears and would wait until he's sad to balance the scales.
One day, he falls in love.
And then he believes that him being happy will cause a nuclear war that would destroy all human life.
2. Nadim
In this universe, Hang Nadim was not killed after he saved Singapore. Instead, he was raised in the palace and became good friends with the Sultan who is his age. It's like Forbidden City Cop and Detective Dee.
One day, the job of Laksamana opens up and he is in the running with five other guys. The other guys all have supernatural powers like invincibility, parang terbang, one is a were-tiger and another is an all around bad-ass. Meanwhile, Hang Nadim has this power - forensic science.
So a Portuguese envoy and his posse arrives at the palace and after spending one night, gets murdered. His posse said, "You give us the murderer in three days or we'll kick your ass and raze your kingdom to the ground."
It's up to Hang Nadim and his always-misunderstood forensic science to solve the murder mystery before the deadline is up.
3. Kampung Batu Sawar
It's 1941. The Japanese land in Malaya and conquers everything, except for one tiny village. This village is protected by seven bomohs. It's like Asterix and Obelix and Kung Fu Hustle.
4. Piramid
In an alternate reality, the Malaysian economy relies almost totally on multi-level marketing (MLMs) and pyramid schemes. At the center of this story is a guy - the greatest salesman ever. He designs MLMs and releases them for his company.
At the verge of doing the biggest MLM scheme in history, he gets a message saying his father just died. He goes home and discovers his village is destroyed by MLMs. The Tok Imam was fielding calls to his downline while reading the tahlil and nobody works - they just try to sell shit to each other.
The guy has a hot neighbour who maintains the only grocery shop left in the village. Together, they try to deprogram the country from the evils of MLM.
5. The Lions
A guy is a loser. He talks to his friends - who are all losers - and they believe their loserness comes from losing a rugby match 20 years ago in high school. The team that beat them became the most successful people in Malaysia.
Now 37 years old, they hear that there is a 20-year anniversary rematch being staged between the schools. The guy believes this is their one chance to reclaim some of their past glory and rectify their loser status by finally winning this game.
But the other team has been practicing for 20 years, keeping their network and talent alive.
It's a normal underdog story with an artsy-fartsy ending.
6. Che Mat Rimau
This is like Pootie Tang - a commercial and critical failure.
Che Mat Rimau is an almost-mythical figure like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill or John Henry Irons or some shit. He's like all the heroes played by Vijayakanth, like Narasimha. Larger than life, a true Malay hero.
When he does teh tarik, it's got some foam art on top and he could out-produce an automated factory with his bare hands.
This is an attempt at creating a modern Malay folk hero but, like in Tamil movies.
So yeah, these are the stories I've kept with me all this while. These are fun as ideas, but each one is a bitch to write or produce.
I was just in a funk just now and needed to write something.
