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Concept
Cinema of Malaysia
Summary
The cinema of Malaysia consists of feature films produced in Malaysia, shot in the languages Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tamil, various indigenous languages, and English.
Malaysia produces about 60 feature films annually, and between 300–400 television dramas and serials a year apart from the in-house productions by the individual television stations. The country also holds its own annual national level film awards, known as the Malaysia Film Festival. There are about 150 cinemas and cineplexes in Malaysia, showing not only local films but also foreign films. Foreign film producers are welcome to shoot on location in Malaysia, undertake film co-production ventures so that local artistes and technicians have the opportunity of gaining exposure and experience.
Currently, there are some internationally famous Malaysian actors such as Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh and Henry Golding.
Malaysian cinema began in 1933 with Leila Majnun, based on a classical Persian story of two ill-fated lovers. Directed by B.S. Rajhans and produced by the Singapore-based Motilal Chemical Company of Bombay, the cast was derived from a local opera group. Observing the success of this project, two brothers, Run Run and Run Me Shaw, were prompted in 1937 to import some equipment from Shanghai and start the production of Malay films from their small studio at Ampas Road in Singapore. However, they only managed to produce five or six movies prior to the Japanese invasion in 1941.
In 1941, when the Japanese occupied Malaya, the first Japanese film companies found local film production to be extremely limited. The exhibition market was dominated by overseas Chinese companies, namely, the Shaw Brothers. The Japanese would later use Malaya for exactly the same purposes, even obtaining the help of the Shaws to break into their extensive Southeast Asian film exhibition network. Although Malaya never became a major film production center under the Japanese, it was a strategically important film market for Japan and a convenient outpost for moving films into and out of Southeast Asia.
Official source
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