watched my fave malay film INDERA BANGSAWAN!! with my father. it’s about twin princes named Indera Sharif (Dato’ Kuswadinata) and Indera Bangsawan (Tan Sri Jins Samsudin — old timer heartthrob!!) borne holding an arrow (Panca Indera) and a sword (Panca Alam) respectively (hmm, yeah, their weapons were given names).

note: you could skip the movie-summary and straight to the whole point i’m actually tyring to say, which is in green.

it so happened that they grew up with exceptional magic prowess and of course, their undeniable and undefeated fighting abilities. and they were sent by their father, the king to find a magical flute (there’s no magical flute, just a ruse their father made up to make them go and ‘discover’ the world).

and so they went and there was a storm, while trying to find a shelter in a nowhere-forest, they unintentionally separated. and so Indera Sharif went on trying to find his way home and came to a deserted post-war kingdom, apparently by the advice of his magical arrow (it had a voice which so obviously sounds like Aziz Jaafar—another oldtimer hearththrob!)

realizing that the place was uninhabited, he beat this big gong, and surprise2, a princess, pretty of course, was hiding in that gong!!! (i mean, how could anyone remained in that gong for i believe a long time, never trying to come out of it, and must be starving!! right??)the princess claimed, she had three other companions with her, who were hiding inside three different barrels!! so our prince is the handsome saviour. indera sharif’s story ends here. oh not yet! he managed to kill this stupid looking cardboard making huge garuda with his Panca Indera the Arrow! (wow, our own legolas…we had our own version of lord of the rings long before they exist)

let us now see what happens to Indera Bangsawan. Apparently, he came to a cave, saw a makeshift bed and immediately slept on it (i had the idea he was terribly exhausted from his journey) and suddenly this old suppposedly-wise looking man came (the cave is his sanctuary) and so after quarelling with the old man, he found out that this old man was his grandfather!! (how the tooot did his grandfather came to live in that hole?? i mean like why??!) his granddaddy was something like a merlin the wizard, able to get food just by saying some magic words, and the food came flying out of nowhere (not that magic lah, just “heiiii meja sakti! sediakanlah makanan agar cucu ku dapat makan” hahah something like that la)

indera bangsawan was given an assignment by his granddaddy to save a princess named Saera (sounds like a classmate in IIU, and she’s Japanese-Turkish!) but alas!!! my handsome indera bangsawan has to turn into a chimpanzee!!! NO NO NO!!!!! a chimp which can talk and sing! (how imaginative malay people can be!!) but that’s how the story goes! and the chimp became the princess’ playmate.

and then, it turned out that the king (Saera’s father) had a truce with a djinn and he had to give his daughter to the djinn when she reached 17. well to cut the story short, a wiseman said only a man named indera bangsawan can kill this djinn….and so the day comes, the princess was sent to the djinn, and surprise2 indera bangsawan was there and the djinn defeated!!! and then the princess found out that the chimp was Indera Bangsawan. how? i think this could be the most stoopidest way ever…so one late night, the princess somehow couldn’t sleep because she suspected there could be a man in her room, and chimp was sleeping in the same room, so she faked sleep, and then chimp woke up and went out to the ‘swimming pool’ and alas!! he could actually took off his chimp-wear!!!! LOL

and of course it’s a happy ending for both indera sharif and indera bangsawan!!

but it’s how this malay films brought back memories of my childhood, when i always roleplayed with my brother (most of the time) that we were a princess and a prince. (but of course my brother was too little to understand, and was only the little prince who followed his sister everywhere she went) and so i was the princess, imagining my room filled with trees and beautiful flowers one moment, and a big room with golden furnitures and velvet covered bed the next. always, a prince will be waiting out the window~ which is no one.

another of my favourite roleplay, was the sea princess having a sea king, living in the ocean, in my mind, a sea cave decorated with all the beautiful corals and me, actually breathing under the sea!) i don’t know where that imagination came from? i don’t remember ever watching The Mermaid when i was younger. i think it’s mostly inspired by chinese epic dramas. (my mother was an avid fan of chinese channel 8 dramas!)

oh my god, i am reliving my childhood plays!! those were the days~ when life was simple and none the care of the world and its problems. when all it matters was another day of play and family love. when a laughter was sincere and the world a big nice place to live in.
those were the days~~