Introduction

Malaysia does not figure very prominently in the rankings of world cinema; in fact it is hardly mentioned in the general discussion of film in academic books and journals or in more popular film books and magazines. I am aware of only two substantial entries on Malaysia in Euro-American film publications, which, whether we like it or not, still constitute the dominant discourse on cinema in the world. There is a chapter on Malaysia (and Singapore) in John A. Lent's interview-based book on Asian film industries (Lent, 1990: 185-200) and regular entries (since at least 1972) by the Malaysian film critic Baharudin Latif in the annual International Film Guide. Roy Armes’ 1987 book Third World Film Making and theWest, which, despite its title, is a broad survey of filmmaking in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, devotes two short paragraphs to Malaysia, including the statement: ‘With production directed at the needs of the domestic market, no directors of international standing have emerged…’ (Armes, 1987: 150) – a contention both tautological and highly questionable (even taking the words ‘domestic market’ very literally, counterexamples to such an argument include Ritwik Ghatak, Lino Brocka, Youssef Chahine, Mizoguchi Kenji and Ozu Yasujiro). The Geoffrey Nowell-Smith edited The Oxford History of World Cinema does not mention Malaysia, nor the rest of Southeast Asia, except for Indonesia, while Katz’ The Macmillan International Film Encyclopedia disregards even that country; both of these ‘world surveys’ do cover India, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Australia and New Zealand (Nowell-Smith, 1996; Katz, 1994). A book written in English about Malaysian media devotes one chapter to its cinema (Grenfell, 1979). It was published in 1979 and is concerned with mass-media audience research, an approach not of direct relevance to this book. As might be expected, there is more recognition of Malaysia in Asian film publications, but even here it is one of the least acknowledged and least regarded of Asian cinemas.