The Malay Chronicles: Bloodlines

The Malay Chronicles is a Malaysian epic action movie directed by Yusry Abdul Halim and stars Stephan Rahman, Gavin Stenhouse, Jing Lusi, Wan hanafi su, Khir Rahman, Rahim Razali and Ummi Nazeera. The story of the movie is very simple hence predictable. The movie is an epic action movie so you will see a lots of fight sequences, bloodshed, swords and it works in the favour of the movie but what doesn't go in the favour is extras goons who just fights and dies with faceless expressions. The movie doesn't wastes much time in depicting Merong as the main protagonist and tells his story with the flow. Acting by support staff is good but the Roman prince played by Gavin stenhouse somewhat disappoints. Direction is good so as the screenplay but somehow misses the grandeur of the real sea war. Overall it may not be that bad but it's a quite fun ride with few of the avoidable flaws.

This "Epic" drama comes out of Malaysia and the story revolves around a Roman soldier, who travels to Goa (India) to meet a Chinese Princess. She gets captured by pirates and the rest of the film concerns a unilateral rescue operation. It's let down by some cheap C.G.I effects in the battle action and half hearted Martial Arts. Best avoided.

It's not a kino but it's not bad either. It's nowhere a perfect movie but it doesn't deserve 3.7. The plot and action are decent, there are frequent fight scenes here and there. The only bad thing here is the dialogues, they looked forced, no matter how good the actor carried it. International version doesn't help either, the localization are screwed. I would advise whoever reads this to watch the Malaysian version, it looks better here. I do watch both versions, yeah both are decent but Malaysian one is better.

This is another pseudo-history that have become very popular with the movie goers. The exception is this is not really a pseudo-history, but a story based upon one iota of fact. WARNING: May contain plot spoilers. Rome and China decide to come together with a wedding of a Roman prince and Chinese princess. They are going to do this on neutral ground in Malaysia (The movie was a big hit there.) The Roman fleet carrying the prince gets damaged and loses its gold ships. They limp into India and attempt to get more vessels, but without the gold, the crafty Indian (They make him talk like a convenience store owner) won't budge. They end up hiring a warrior/slave (Stephen Rahman Hughes as Merong ), who descends from Alexander to take them in his small junque. The prince (Gavin Stenhouse as Marcus Carpenius ) is concerned that the princess may not love him. We get that answer in the next scene as we see the Chinese princess (Jing Lusi as Princess Meng Li Hua ) is bathing, complaining to her attendant she does not want to marry a barbarian. The movie shows the contempt Eastern civilization had for the west as they were "barbarians", "fur and gold wearers" and "boy lovers." Rome is not at home in Malaysia. Clearly they are not in charge and are at the mercy of their host. Speaking of which, once the princess saw the Roman she opts to flee with her attendant Ying Ying (Nell Ng). Marcus is also very adept in various Chinese fighting techniques. There is sorcery by those that pray to the "old gods." There is a prophecy that Merong keeps remembering, one that his mother always spoke to him. Don't worry, if you missed it the first few times, you get to see it again. When Merong is with his own people he speaks a foreign language with subtitles. When the Chinese are together, they opt for English, the same that the Romans speak. The princess mentions she also speaks Latin and does so, apparently not what the Romans speak. Ouch! Like so many of these pseudo-histories, the language is modern including slang, ideas and terms that are clearly anachronistic. The movie dialogue and action is written for the younger audience, one prohibited from seeing this with the "R" rating. There is no nudity (naked silhouette). There is no foul language, Oh they do say "pee." The princess is apparently groped in one scene, but all we see is her face. There is a lot of fighting and killing with dead bodies, but not much in blood and gore.

It started out pretty good, then they got to India, and then the pretty boy prince met the charming savage I still clung to hope, and when they got to the spoiled rich princess wanted to run away to be a music teacher, I still clung to hope, but when the Roman prince started to whine about marrying for love, I couldn't watch anymore. I've been to south Asian countries where poverty is everywhere. Surrounded by so much poverty where it's common to regularly miss meals and live in squalor, it would be unlikely that anyone of wealth would leave willingly. Many times woman seek to marry for any man with a job, even if its a farm worker. Doctors and lawyers can barely make a living because hardly anyone can afford their services, an Asian princess would know this. In both Asia and Europe, it was common to marry for economics or duty. The concept of marrying for love came into existence around the 19th industrialized century. It was a nice fairy tale. Good for people who want a Disney-type fairy tale with no basis in reality or history or facts or human nature.

It's honestly a good movie considering the Malay Film industry. It's a good direction in providing historical accounts of Malay history. I would say it's a tremendous start that KRU Studios has done and I'm impressed that a part of Malay history is now demented through this film. As a Singaporean Malay, I'm proud to have watched this film and overall I highly recommend it! The reviews may have pegged this film against those with budgets over over 10 million or more. I would say with the Low budget given for the film, the director and studio did a great job. I'll ensure my kids watch this film with me one day to understand better about Malay History too!