A total of 63% respondents said they prefer watching foreign movies to local ones.
For more than a century, the Hollywood had been dominating the global commercial film industry. Most of the peak screening time in the Malaysian leading cinemas such as TGV Cinemas and Golden Screen Cinemas are occupied by Hollywood films. How about our local films? You can find them if you visit the cinemas in the mornings of weekdays. Well, perhaps we should not compare our local film industry with the well-developed Hollywood industry. Let’s take a step back to look at the Asian film industry. Being a Third World country, India is able to produce more than 1,000 films annually which surpasses the productions of Hollywood. South Korea also churns out a lot of high-quality movies on a low budget which successfully contribute to the economic growth of the country. To understand why the foreign films are ahead of local films, a survey was conducted to investigate the behavioural and viewing patterns of Malaysian movie-goers. The findings will guide the local filmmakers to identify their shortcomings and understand the local’s movie preference.
Most of the peak screening time in the Malaysian leading cinemas such as TGV Cinemas and Golden Screen Cinemas are occupied by Hollywood films. How about our local films? You can find them if you visit the cinemas in the mornings of weekdays.
The online survey involved 54 respondents from different race, ages, gender groups, educational and career backgrounds. Respondents’ demographic information is an important factor deciding their movie preference. The analysis also reported the place the respondents currently stay at because the locations can affect viewers’ access to cinemas and local movies. The weakness in generalization is a big concern in this study because the small number of respondents cannot represent the opinions of 32 million of Malaysians. However, the results still exert an influence because the most active group participating in this survey is Generation Z who stands as the future of local film industry.
Movie Preference: Local V.S. Foreign
Malaysians love watching movies. From the findings, a total 92.6% of respondents said they like watching movies with almost half of the respondents watch movies more than 5 times a month. The top 3 preferences based on genre are adventure, comedy, and fantasy or magic. The respondents showed lack of interest in the movie genres of animation, musical, and family stories.
As predicted, 63% of respondents said they prefer watching foreign movies to local ones, while the rest admitted that they like both local and foreign movies. A noteworthy result is that none of the respondents said they prefer local movies to foreign ones. Regarding the reasons why they prefer watching foreign movies, the respondents replied that foreign films deliver more interesting stories with amazing cinematography and fantastic special effects. However, the respondents showed willingness to support local movie industry when the stories are relevant to locals’ daily lives.
Nearly three quarters of respondents have watched more than 20 foreign movies before. In a big contrast, only 3 out of 54 respondents have watched more than 20 local movies. Over half of the respondents said they have only watched about 1 to 4 local movies throughout their lives. The top 3 reasons they do not watch local movies are the unattractive cinematography, the cliché or boring stories, and the unfamous actors. The results support the opinion of Ku Seman Ku Husain, a local former entertainment journalist. Ku Seman told Bernama that poor content quality is the biggest issue of the local film industry. “The movie won’t go far without substance,” he mentioned.
“The movie won’t go far without substance,” said Ku Seman.
When being asked to name the movies they have watched before, Frozen 2 is the most well-known foreign movie followed by Avengers. In terms of local movies, the Chinese movie Great Day was the most famous. The data also revealed that the respondents do not pay much attention or concern on the movie directors. A total of 40.7% respondents admitted that they do not know any foreign movie director while over half of the respondents did not know any local movie director. The movie director, James Cameron was the most famous foreign director known by the respondents. On the other side, Yasmin Ahmad, Chiu Keng Guan (the director of Great Day) and Namewee are among the top three well-known local movie directors mentioned by the respondents.
(This question did not received answers from all 54 respondents because it is not a compulsory question. Those who did watch local movies in other languages were excluded from answering this question.)
Local filmmakers are encouraged to produce movies which portray the cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue in Malaysia. In consistent with that suggestion, the findings of this survey demonstrated that almost four fifths of the respondents said they like to see local culture such as the code-switching phenomenon being emphasized in the movies. However, the survey results also showed that the respondents have no interest in watching local movies produced in languages other than their mother tongue. Researchers have raised the issue that the separation along ethnic lines splits the local film industry into parts. In the interview with Bernama, Ku Seman also expressed his concern that the presence of “Malaysia” cannot be seen in Malay films. He cited the movie The Journey as a good example of local film that featured a multiracial cast and reflected the true spirit of Malaysia.
The separation along ethnic lines splits the local film industry into parts. The presence of “Malaysia” cannot be seen in Malay films.
With regard to the suggestions in improving the local movie industry, the respondents encouraged the filmmakers to jump out of the box when creating the storylines. The respondents felt boring to watch cliché stories such as family love or parent-child conflict. Some respondents also mentioned that the local filmmakers are seemed trying too hard to involve all races in the movies in order to bring the value of national unity. It is good to emphasize the local culture in the movies, but it turns awkward when that theme is over-emphasized and does not reflect the true social culture. Also, the respondents made a point that the government should provide financial support to improve the cinematography and technical elements in the local films. There are local movies winning awards at international film festivals but are almost unheard of locally. Hopefully the findings will be benefit for the local filmmakers to formulate future strategic plans to overcome their shortcomings.
References
Changsong, W., & Yiming, C. (2017). The ideological struggle of multicultural nationalism: Cultural identity in the 2014 Malaysian top-grossing movie The
Journey. In SHS Web of Conferences (Vol. 33).
Maheendran, K. (2017). “We spoke different languages, yet we sang the same song”: An analysis of multiculturalism in Ola Bola. The Journal of the South East Asia
Research Centre for Communication and Humanities, 9(2), 83-104.
McCarthy, N. (2014, September 3). Bollywood: India's film industry by the numbers
[Infographic]. Forbes. Retrieved 1 December, 2019, from
Satriyandinar, S. P. (2018, August 26). Why the lack of interest in local films? The
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