17 Films & TV Shows Set In Malaysia During The 20th Century
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The Garden of Evening Mists
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1950sA woman seeking a quiet life in post-World War II British Malaya finds love and a common interest in gardening with a mysterious Japanese man.
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Crazy Rich Asians
🇲🇾 Malaysia 🇸🇬 Singapore The 1990s The 2010sThe only thing crazier than love is family. — An American-born Chinese economics professor accompanies her boyfriend to Singapore for his best friend's wedding, only to get thrust into the lives of Asia's rich and famous.
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Mountain of Gold
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1950sThe story of Almayer, a Dutch trader struggling to survive in Malaysia at the turn of the 19th Century. His dream of finding a mythical gold mountain is challenged by his scheming wife, the colonial authorities, the political machinations of the local chief and Arab traders, and his daughter's love for a freedom-fighting Malay prince.
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Ola Bola
🇲🇾 Malaysia 🇷🇺 Russia The 1980sYou Will Believe Again — Set in the 1970s, a multicultural team of Malaysian football players struggle to overcome personal and collective hardships as a team. Together they create the most triumphant zero to hero story and gain a place at the Asian Games.
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Bravo 5
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1980sSet in 1989, five members of the Commando Army from the Special Force Regiment have been instructed to locate the whereabouts of guerilla communists, who are planning to obtain the strategic position of central Peninsular Malaysia. However, when the members lose contact with the rest of the army due to a broken communication set, the five of them will have to fight off an army of guerilla communists.
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Almayer's Folly
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1950sA tale of an occidental merchant, Kaspar Almayer, whose dreams of riches for his beloved daughter, Nina, collapse under the weight of his own greed and prejudice.
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The Beautiful Country
🇲🇾 Malaysia 🇻🇳 Vietnam Texas The 1990sAn epic story of hope. — After reuniting with his mother in Ho Chi Minh City, a family tragedy causes Binh to flee from Viet Nam to America. Landing in New York, Binh begins a road trip to Texas, where his American father is said to live.
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The Sleeping Dictionary
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1930sLearn to speak her language. — A young Englishman is dispatched to Sarawak to become part of the British colonial government. He encounters some unorthodox local traditions, and finds himself faced with tough decisions of the heart involving the beautiful Selima, the unwitting object of his affections.
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Entrapment
🇲🇾 Malaysia New York Scotland England The 1990s The 2000sThe trap is set. — Two thieves, who travel in elegant circles, try to outsmart each other and, in the process, end up falling in love.
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Dadah Is Death
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1980sOn 9th of November 1983 two Australians, Kevin Barlow and Geoff Chambers were arrested at Penang Airport in Malaysia carrying 179 grams of Heroin. A crime which in Malaysia carries a mandatory sentence of death... Dadah Is Death (A Long Way From Home) is the true story of Barbara Barlow's desperate attempt to save her son from the Hangmans rope - a courageous effort that involved impassioned pleas to President Reagan, The British Prime Minister, and even the Pope. By July 1986 this international struggle had seemed to reach a hopeless conclusion and all that was left was a mother's love for her son.
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Bukit Kepong
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1950s"We the police will never surrender! We will stand here to the death! Bukit Kepong will be our graves!" — The dramatisation of a Communist Terrorist assault on a rural Federation of Malaya Police station at Bukit Kepong, Muar, Johor, of then Malaya, on February 23, 1950, during the height of the First Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960.
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The Virgin Soldiers
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1950sSooner or later, they're going to get it — The core of the plot is the romantic triangle formed by the protagonist, a conscripted soldier named Private Brigg; a worldly professional soldier named Sergeant Driscoll, and Phillipa Raskin, the daughter of the Regimental Sergeant Major. The location is a British army base in Singapore during the Malayan Emergency.
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Sergeant Hassan
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1940sHassan (P. Ramlee) is 10 when his father died. His mother had died when he was younger. His late father's boss feels sorry for Hassan and adopts him. However, Hassan's foster father's own child, Aziz (Jins Shamsudin) is jealous of Hassan and hates him. When both of them have fully grown up, Aziz and Buang (Salleh Kamil) always bully Hassan. At the same time, Salmah (Saadiah) has developed a crush towards Hassan, fuelling Aziz's fury. When the Second World War is approaching, the Royal Malay Regiment begins recruiting young soldiers.
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The Camp on Blood Island
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1940sThis is not just a story - it is based on brutal truth — Set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II, the film focuses on the brutality and horror that the allied prisoners were exposed to as the Japanese metered out subjugation and punishment to a disgraced and defeated enemy. This harrowing drama concentrates on the deviations of legal and moral definitions when two opposing cultures clash. Although fictional, this was one of the earliest films to deal realistically with life and death in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during the Second War.
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A Town Like Alice
England 🇲🇾 Malaysia Northern Territory The 1940sA tale of survival. — In 1941, The advancing Japanese army captures a lot of British territory very quickly. The men are sent off to labor camps, but they have no plan on what to do with the women and children of the British.
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Three Came Home
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1940sThe true story of one woman's personal experience! — Borneo, 1941, during World War II. When the Japanese occupy the island, American writer Agnes Newton Keith is separated from her husband and imprisoned with her son in a prison camp run by the enigmatic Colonel Suga.
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Malaya
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1940sAfter living abroad for several years, journalist John Royer returns to the United States just after the U.S. enters World War II. His boast that he could easily smuggle rubber, a key wartime natural resource, out of Malaya has him tasked with doing just that. He manages to get someone from his past, Carnaghan, sprung from Alactraz and together they head off to South East Asia posing as Irishmen. Once there, Carnaghan lines up some of his old cronies and with Royer and a few plantation owners plans to smuggle the rubber out from under the Japanese army's watchful eye.
