Raison d’être

Warning: Very mild spoiler ahead

Finally, after RM4 mil, 40 animators and 2 years later, Malaysia’s first full-scale 3D animated movie entitled “GENG: Pengembaraan Bermula” (GENG: The Adventure Begins) premiered on the silver screen on 12th February 2009.

My mates and I caught the show on 12.10am the next day at the GSC, Alamanda Putrajaya along with many many MMU students who made up most of the hall. It felt like attending a lecture class in the E-Theatre, MMU

To be frank, at first I was kinda underestimated the production quality and storyline of the movie. Hey, you can’t blame me. We’re Malaysian and we have to be skeptic on all Malaysia products. Even our ‘beloved’ prime minister is quoted as saying, “Try it because you might like it. I myself decided one day to try it and discovered they were not bad…” [source]

Ok lah, enough of sarcasm already. Well, based on majority of Malaysian made movies which are emm, lame-o, one has a reason to be doubtful. But hold on, after watching GENG I truly eat my own words back. The animation is really smooth and realistic enough. I won’t go as far as saying that it can match Pixar Studio’s or Dreamworks’ animated movies which cost at least ten-fold more, but for a local product this is really something!

As someone who has experiences in using 3D softwares and doing 3D assignments, I realized how much effort is taken by the people in Les’ Copaque Production (LCP) in realizing the 1st Malaysian full CGI movie. The lighting is really beautiful and convincing (I like the night scenes’ lighting), the texturing is quite minimal but enough to make the 3D looks real. The animation in general is impressive and well done, although at some parts they move a tad too fast to be real but it’s not a big deal since the whole thing is cartoon-like.

The story is about a group of kids who become friends or ‘GENG’ during their journey in resolving the mysterious case of ‘hantu durian’ (durian ghost) in – well, you guessed it – Kampung Durian Runtuh. The GENG is consisted of Badrol, Lim, Kak Ros, Rajoo, and the famous twin Upin & Ipin. The journey took them deep into the jungle where there are mysteries waiting to be unfold.

At first, the plots seem pretty straightforward and one can almost foresee what is going to happen next. But towards the middle and the end, the story takes us into an interesting twist that will explain the stuff at the beginning and make you keep wondering what will happen to the GENG. I really like the ‘other world’ where Oopet and his mom live – it’s just like the scenes from Spore.

The characters are also very adorable and connect with each other and the audiences well. In term of character development, some are really good and some aren’t so. I personally prefer the character Badrol to be ‘richer’, because I think he is kinda static and ordinary from beginning till the end – unlike Lim who has this dislike attitude towards kids, and also the Chinese slang. The twins, Upin and Ipin are very funny and cute as usual and this really helps in making the story more alive (I’m sure you guys have already watched their TV series, right?)

There are a lot of jokes and humorous incidents through out the story which added up to the believability of the whole scenes. For example, in the early parts during the TV interview, where Tok Dalang excitedly tried to enter the frame. And there is also an Uncle Muthu with amusing Tamil accent which keeps me smiling everytime he ‘talks’. Not to mention the after-credit scene which made the whole cinema burst into laughter. I didn’t see that coming, really.

Overall, I would give “GENG: Pengembaraan Bermula” a solid 8.0/10 – mainly due to the hard effort by a mere 40 local animators and this is the very first local 100% CGI film, and it is very promising for the future! GENG is a very exciting animated film that will take you on a roller-coaster ride of fun, humour, suspense and feel-good experience. It is very suitable for the little ones too as it is filled with moral and cultural values

On the other note, I am very sure that in the future LCP will produce much much better productions and who knows, maybe there is another LCP in the making already.

To all of you who haven’t watch GENG or is still deciding whether to catch it or not, just head straight away to your nearest cinema and watch it! And for those who’ve done so, go for the second time. Hehe. Long live Malaysian animation industry!

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