Review of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

The poster of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, it was the first local movie that I've watched. To be honest, it is a film that I will not watch at the cinema because  rarely watch local films. Because we have to write a review about the movie, therefore at the beginning I forced myself to concentrate on the movie. The first question comes into my mind was " Is this really a local film?"   I bet all of the classmates will never know it was a local film if Ms.Lina never mention before she show us the film. 

 The storyline of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa was about the journey of Merong Mahawangsa (Stephen Rahman) escorting a Roman Prince Marcus (Gavin Stenhouse) to wed a beautiful Chinese Princess Meng Li Hua (Jing Lusi) during the 2nd century. After they reached at the island, they got attacked by Geruda because the Geruda decided to kidnap Princess Meng Li Hua. 

Prince Marcus and Princess Meng Li Hua

 Both prince and princess were unwilling to get marry with a person that doesn’t even meet before. So Princess Meng Li Hua decided to run away with her handmaiden Ying Ying (Nell Ng) when the day Prince Marcus arrived. Although she successfully ran away but she and her handmaiden bumped into the Prince Marcus at the forest. Then, Prince Marcus realizes that she was the Han princess and knew that she decided to run away from the marriage. That was what Prince Marcus wants to so he decided to bring both of them out from the forest. It is hard for me to accept that both of them fall in love in the forest during Prince Marcus helping Princess Meng Li Hua to ran away from the wedding? So it was like 5 minutes ago they still hate or dislike each other but after 5 minutes they fall in love with each other. Sounds crazy and funny though.  Further more, it is hard to accept that a Han Princess can speak English fluently and several languages but is acceptable because she's a princess so she can learn anything she want but what about the handmaiden Ying Ying? A handmaiden can communicate with the Princess Meng Li Hua in english fluently? 

Merong Wangsa

"Sampai masa tibanya waktu, 

Redup hati kaum berdua, 

Bila dua jasad menjadi satu, 

Hidup mati jadi bersama"

My favourite character in this movie is Merong Wangsa (Stephen Rahman Hughes). There are pros and cons of him in this movie. The pros were he has good characteristics in the movie. He is a warrior that willing to sacrifice himself for the others in the movie and also he escort Prince Marcus to the island and rescue Prince Marcus when he know Prince Marcus is in danger because he promise that he will escort him safely to the island. In another hand, the cons are his Malay language delivery was quite bad in the movie, maybe that’s the reason why the film doesn’t look local due to the English language delivery in the movie. He is a very handsome man but I think that his acting in this movie was a bit too over in some of the scenes, maybe is because he used to perform in plays and musicals. Although there’s a lot of cons for Merong Wangsa in the movie but it is still sad that the movie ends with the death of Merong Wangsa. He’s such a warrior that sacrifices himself for everyone. That scene shows that he truly understand about what his mother told him via voice over, when he did the sacrifice.

Overall, it is a worth watching movie although there’s still much improvement needed but I guess it is already consider a big improvement compare to all the local movies we had.