In this paper I will give an exposition of some of the main features of this film,
emphasizing the film's interest in exploring the richness possible in multi-racial encounter. I will
suggest that sometimes the stratagems adopted by Yasmin Ahmad are transgressive of dominant
Malay Muslim values, endorsed by the Malay Muslim establishment in Malaysia, and that this
explains some of the attacks on the film. I will also explore the ambiguous ending of the film,
suggesting that the ways the relationship between the couple remain unresolved at the end of the
film is a stratagem used by Ahmad to avoid extreme criticism. Additionally I will be arguing that
in some senses, Ahmad is attempting to open up the issue of multiracial encounters in a way that
she might see as exemplary for Malaysia, and that to have made the film conform to Malay
conservative values and standards would have inhibited the openness of her exploration.
Malaysia being a multicultural society, citizens have always been exhorted to handle
issues of multiculturalism delicately and in a very positive light, so as to not pose a threat to
racial harmony in Malaysia. Very often, representatives from the three main races in Malaysia
are represented in advertisements, television programs or films, together, to represent the
harmony and unity amongst the various races in Malaysia. Therefore, the fact that Ahmad used a
Malay girl and a Chinese boy as her main characters was lauded and encouraged. But Ahmad did
not just depict the typical stereotype of the harmonious Malaysian society. She took a different
twist by challenging her audience to ignore the differences not only in race, but in religion,
between her characters.
This film is an interracial romance between an intelligent Malay girl, Orked, who has an
interest in Chinese movies, and a young Chinese man, Jason, selling VCDs and DVDs part time
in a night market area in Ipoh. The relationship develops gradually with the couple beginning to
see each other in transitional spaces such as fast food chains identified with neither races. Jason
is from a poor family, with an abusive father and a mother who refuses to be submissive when
given the opportunity. Orked is from a moderately wealthy middle class liberal Malay family,
and her parents are supportive of her interest in Jason, when they learn of it from their servant.
Eventually Orked meets Jason in a Chinese coffee shop which also sells roast pork, and there she
is introduced to his Chinese friends, who are presented as thoughtful and engaging young people.
In this scene there are perceptive discussions between the young people about how Chinese and
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Malays see each other. Orked declares her surprise at Jason’s talent in writing poetry and
Keong’s ability to play the piano, both forms of high brow art which are not commonly found
ways of representing young men with Jason and Keong’s background. At the same time, Jason
and his friends are a little troubled by standover gangs who also populate and intimidate their
milieu. Even in early scenes in the film, such as the 'love at first sight' meeting in the market
stall, the language used is a mixture of Malay, Chinese and Chinese slang, and English. Many
scenes are taken up with exploring varieties of multiracial encounter, and there is one very well
written scene in which Orked defends her choice of boyfriend (a slant eye) against the mockery
coming from a Malay male fellow student at the university.
The plot develops in such a way where, while both Jason and Orked are clearly
compatible and mutually strongly attracted, Jason has another girl interested in him and he gets
her pregnant, thus creating a crisis in the relationship for Orked, which leads to a stand off
between the two. Orked eventually wins a scholarship to study in London. She leaves for the
airport, not having communicated with Jason for some time. Jason simultaneously is heading for
the airport on his motor scooter, in hope at least of seeing her there. Orked calls him on her
handphone, at the instigation of her mother, but the film cuts to a shot of Jason lying unconscious
on the road, blood flowing from a wound on his head. Despite this, the film ends ambiguously
with Orked in conversation with Jason's voice on her handphone, reassuring her they will meet at
some time in the future.
The themes of the film and its real concerns are clearly foreshadowed in the opening
scenes of the film. In the first scene we are introduced to Jason, casually reading a poem to his
mother in Mandarin. Jason’s dyed hair resembles that of a gangster or a rebel. The poem is by
the Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore. This is an unusual moment, with a rebellious looking
young boy having an interest in Tagore’s poems; and unusual also in cinema anywhere to find a
mother and a son who are sharing an intellectual interest. This scene of the Chinese mother, clad
in a baju kebaya
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while conversing in Malay and having her son respond in Chinese, shows the
differences that Ahmad wants to project in her film. The poem by Tagore celebrates a mother’s unconditional love towards her child, regardless of his poor choices and shortcomings. As the
film progresses, we are able to understand that the poem exemplifies Jason’s relationship with
his mother. The scene concludes with Jason’s mother stating that it is strange that this poem is
from “people of a different culture and a different language and yet we can feel what was in his
heart”. It is significant that this scene immediately follows a recitation of the Koran in Arabic by
a Malay girl clad in a telekung
4 . Once she finishes, posters of Japanese star Takeshi Kaneshiro
are seen on her wall. This conflicts with our typical expectation of a religious Malay girl
5
Shortly afterwards we see the same young man, in a different context, where he is with
friends involved in DVD piracy and surrounded by electronic gear. He puts on music and dances
to it. The music is traditional Malay popular music, with a discernible Arabian or Middle Eastern
influence. Jason dances to it, fully identifying with its rhythms and suddenly appearing to be
involved in Malay popular culture, even if in an exaggerated way. In his youthful excitement, he
wants to involve his Chinese friends in this musically induced feeling state, and dances
provocatively in front of them. This interest in being able to momentarily translate oneself
between two cultures, emphasized both with seriousness and humour, via popular culture, is a
recurrent motif and experience in the film, and I will discuss other instances of this later.