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Transnationalising Malay Cinema: P. Ramlee in Hong Kong
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 October 2024
Abstract
This article investigates P. Ramlee's little-known attempt at transnationalising Malay cinema in the early 1960s. Using biographical records, newspaper reports and film magazines, I trace the star's earliest direct contact with Hong Kong cinema, his plans to make Malay films in Hong Kong, the controversy that ensued, and the outcomes of these grand plans. Situating this episode in its historical context, this article unsettles standard narratives of P. Ramlee, and Malay and Malaysian film histories. It demonstrates that, as opposed to the seemingly inevitable ethnonational route, and in contrast to the hypernationalist characterisation of P. Ramlee today, a transnational model was once envisioned through P. Ramlee as a potential future for Malay cinema in the face of tumultuous geopolitical changes. It also brings to light the complex role that labour activism played in shaping post-studio era development of Malay cinema, and the roots of Malaysian national cinema.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The National University of Singapore.
Footnotes
This article was completed with funding from NTU Start-Up Grant (Award no.: SUG2021/Call2). The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, and Mr Wong Han Min for his kindness and generosity in sharing with me his valuable collection. All picture credits in this article belong to Mr Wong Han Min.
References
1 Veteran filmmaker and critic Hassan Muthalib, for example, describes films directed by P. Ramlee as having introduced ‘a new kind of realism in Malay cinema’. See Muthalib, Hassan, Malaysian cinema in a bottle: A century (and a bit more) of wayang (Petaling Jaya: Merpati Jingga, 2013), p. 53Google Scholar. Jan Udhe opines that P. Ramlee's debut film as a director, Trishaw Puller (Penarek Becha, 1955), reflects a unique brand of social realism, while Rohayati Paseng Barnard and Timothy P. Barnard point out the nuances and ambivalences in Ramlee's social criticism. See Jan Udhe, ‘P. Ramlee and neorealism’, Kinema, Spring 2015, https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/view/1323/1736 (last accessed 27 Jan. 2024); Barnard, Rohayati Paseng and Barnard, Timothy P., ‘The ambivalence of P. Ramlee: Penarek Beca and Bujang Lapok in perspective’, Asian Cinema 13, 2 (2002): 9–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Harding, James and Sarji, Ahmad, P. Ramlee: The bright star (Subang Jaya: Pelanduk, 2002), p. 236Google Scholar.
3 ‘P. Ramlee Memorial Library’, Visit KL, http://www.visitkl.gov.my/visitklv2/index.php?r=column/cthree&id=106&place_id=1076#, accessed 24 May 2022. Almost every major volume on Malay and Malaysian film history has an extended section on P. Ramlee. Muthalib notes that ‘[d]iscussions about the state of the industry today invariably refer to his achievements. All this continues to contribute to his growing popularity with new audiences who continue to discover, enjoy and appreciate the films of a true genius of Malaysian cinema.’ See Muthalib, Malaysian cinema in a bottle, p. 68.
4 Johan, Adil, ‘Reframing the national culture narrative of P. Ramlee’, in Discourses, agency and identity in Malaysia: Critical perspectives, ed. Ibrahim, Zawawi, Richards, Gareth and King, Victor T. (Singapore: Springer, 2021), p. 383Google Scholar. Separately, Adil Johan's book offers fresh perspectives and deep insights into P. Ramlee's cosmopolitan sensibilities, thus diversifying and intervening critically into the homogeneous discursive project that affirms the star as the epitome of Malaysian ethnonationalism. Nevertheless, the book's discussion of Ramlee's cosmopolitanism remains within the analytical framework of national culture and identity. See Johan, Adil, Cosmopolitan intimacies: Malay film music of the independence era (Singapore: NUS Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 For example, prominent Malay film historian Hatta Azad Khan notes that, from the 1950s, Malay intellectuals and those in the film industry became very vocal about the fate of Malay films in the hands of foreign directors. They held that directors of Malay films must first of all understand Malay customs and traditions. One representative event is the founding in 1967 of the first Malay-owned film company based in the Malay Peninsula, the Association of Film Artiste Company (Gabungan Karyawan Filem Malaysia, GAFICO). This took place after the closure of one of the two most prominent Malay film studios at that time—the Malay Film Productions company. See Hatta Azad Khan, ‘The Malay cinema (1948–1989): Early history and development in the making of a national cinema’ (PhD diss., University of New South Wales, 1994), pp. 131, 186. Tamaki Matsuoka Kanda provides an interesting anecdote that highlights this Malay ethnocentric turn: ‘[Director] Phani Majumdar left Singapore in 1959, though he had been offered citizenship by the government. It was just after the independence of the Malay Federation within the Commonwealth, and he felt the rise of Malay nationalism and did not want to stay there as an Indian immigrant.’ See Tamaki Matsuoka Kanda, ‘Indian film directors in Malaya’, in Frames of mind: Reflections on Indian cinema, ed. Aruna Vasudev (New Delhi: UBSPD, 1995), p. 43.
6 Gordon Gray describes this state intervention as creating ‘a space for Malay entrepreneurs to take financial control (hence also creative control) of the industry’. See Gordon Gray, ‘Malaysian cinema and negotiations with modernity: Film and anthropology’ (PhD diss., Edinburgh Napier University, 2002), p. 245. Muthalib documents how the Malaysian arm of Cathay sought a Bumiputera partner in line with NEP requirements; Muthalib, Malaysian cinema in a bottle, p. 98.
7 Latif Baharudin, Cintai filem Malaysia: Love Malaysian films (Kuala Lumpur: Perbadanan Kemajuan Nasional Malaysia, 1989), pp. 50–51.
8 Muthalib, Malaysian cinema in a bottle, p. 147.
9 Khoo Gaik Cheng, ‘Urban geography as pretext: Sociocultural landscapes of Kuala Lumpur in independent Malaysian films’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 29, 1 (2008): 38. Elsewhere, Khoo has called Malay cinema (as Malaysian cinema) a ‘cinema of denial’, which resists Arabicisation and asserts Malay indigenous identity in the context of Malaysia, but also problematically denies or excludes the customs of non-Malays, due to political sensitivity around portraying the cultures and religions of other ethnic groups. See Khoo Gaik Cheng, Reclaiming adat: Contemporary Malaysian film and literature (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006), pp. 85, 95.
10 Aside from Ramlee's ‘Hong Kong endeavour’, the other most notable instance of transnational Malay cinema is a series of Malay James Bond films made in Hong Kong between 1967 and 1968. While Malay and Malaysian film history narratives do commonly acknowledge the existence of these films, they are often casually dismissed or completely neglected on the grounds that they are not actually ‘Malay’ films. Some even categorise these as ‘Hong Kong films’. See, for example, Daftar filem Melayu: 1933–1993, ed. Jamil Sulong, Hamzah Hussein and Abdul Malik Mokhtar (Ampang: Perbadanan Kemajuan Filem Nasional Malaysia, 1993), pp. 38, 10–14; Sharifah Zinjuaher H.M. Ariffin and Hang Tuah Arshad, Sejarah filem Melayu (Kuala Lumpur: Sri Sharifah, 1980); Abi, Filem Melayu: Dahulu dan sekarang (Kuala Lumpur: Marwilis, 1987); Hamzah Hussin, Memoir Hamzah Hussin: Dari Keris Film ke Studio Merdeka (Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1997); Timothy Barnard, ‘The Shaw Brothers’ Malay films’, in China forever: The Shaw Brothers and diasporic cinema, ed. Poshek Fu (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), p. 169.
11 ‘Ramlee, wife in “Love Parade”’, Straits Times, 7 June 1962, p. 6.
12 A song about the Bengawan Solo, a river in Java.
13 Most accounts agree that the 1950s–60s constitute the studio era of Malay cinema. This refers to the period where Malay cinema functioned predominantly through the vertically integrated systems of two major players at that time: the MFP and Cathay-Keris. In terms of productivity, film quality, popularity and financial strength, historians also identify this period as the ‘Golden Age’ of Malay cinema. See Gray, ‘Malaysian cinema and negotiations with modernity’, p. 102; Khoo, Reclaiming adat, p. 101; Hatta Azad Khan, ‘The Malay cinema (1948–989)’, pp. 134–5; Hassan Muthalib and Wong Tuck Cheong, ‘Malaysia: Gentle winds of change’, in Being and becoming: The cinemas of Asia, ed. Aruna Vasudev, Latika Padgaonkar and Rashmi Doraiswamy (New Delhi: Macmillan, 2002), p. 179; Jonathan Driskell, ‘Majallah Filem and stardom in the golden age of Malay cinema’, in Star attractions: Twentieth-century movie magazines and global fandom, ed. Tamar Jeffers McDonald and Lies Lanckman (Iowa City: Iowa University Press, 2019), pp. 111–22.
14 Khan, ‘The Malay cinema’, pp. 92–100.
15 ‘Malaya's fifth Malay film under production’, Malaya Tribune, 20 June 1941, p. 2.
16 Trishaw Puller is the second Malay film directed by a Malay director. The first was Jewel in the Slum (Permata Diperlimbahan, 1952) by director Haji Mahadi, which was a commercial failure. See Timothy Barnard, ‘Decolonization and the nation in Malay film, 1955–1965’, South East Asia Research 17, 1 (2009): 73. Muthalib documents three other possible accounts of how P. Ramlee got the chance to direct; see Muthalib, Cinema in a bottle, p. 52.
17 Much has been written about how film studios across Asia formed connections with one another during the post-war era. One recent notable work on this topic is Lee Sang Joon, Cinema and the cultural Cold War: US diplomacy and the origins of the Asian cinema network (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020).
18 Muthalib, Malaysian cinema in a bottle, p. 52.
19 Stephanie DeBoer, Coproducing Asia: Locating Japanese–Chinese regional film and media (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2014), pp. 70, 74.
20 Ibid., pp. 46, 60, 73; Kinnia Yau, Japanese and Hong Kong film industries: Understanding the origins of East Asian film networks (London: Routledge, 2010), p. 104.
21 Elizabeth Sinn, ‘Lesson in openness: Creating a space of flow in Hong Kong’, in Hong Kong mobile: Making a global population, ed. Helen Siu and Agnes Ku (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), pp. 13–44; Ackbar Abbas, Hong Kong: Culture and the politics of disappearance (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997), p. 4.
22 ‘Sinar hidup Saloma mula gemerlapan sejak berkahwin dengan P. Ramlee’, Berita Harian, 12 Nov. 1978, p. 7.
23 See further Khoo Gaik Cheng, ‘Introduction’, in Southeast Asia on screen: From independence to financial crisis (1945–1998), ed. Khoo Gaik Cheng, Mary Ainslie and Thomas Barker (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020), pp. 9–32; Gerald Sim, Postcolonial hangups in Southeast Asian cinema: Poetics of space, sound and stability (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020), pp. 17–52.
24 Nguyen Van Tinh, ‘Vietnam’, in The films of ASEAN, ed. Jose F. Lacaba (Quezon City: ASEAN Committee on Culture and Information, 2000), p. 196.
25 Salim Said, Shadows on the silver screen: A social history of Indonesian film, trans. Toenggoel O. Siagian (Jakarta: Grafiti Pers, 1990), p. 64.
26 Thomas Barker, ‘Historical inheritance and Film Nasional in post-Reformasi Indonesian cinema’, Asian Cinema 21, 2 (2010): 14.
27 Barnard, ‘Decolonization and the nation in Malay film’, p. 76.
28 ‘Cathay to become a public company’, Straits Times, 28 July 1959, p. 1.
29 Barnard, ‘Decolonization and the nation in Malay film’, p. 76.
30 ‘P. Ramlee AMN akan berangkat ka-Hong Kong’, Mastika Filem 12, June 1963, pp. 3–4. This is not the first report on Ramlee's Hong Kong plans, but it is possibly the first to list the names of the proposed films.
31 ‘Seniwati’, Mastika Filem, 14 Aug. 1963, p. 10.
32 ‘10 pelakon ka-Hongkong untok penggambaran filem P Ramlee’, Berita Harian, 10 July 1963, p. 7.
33 ‘P. Ramlee sebok menyusun lagu2 filem-nya’, Berita Harian, 6 July 1963, p. 7.
34 ‘Majlis untok perkenalkan pelakun2 yg kelak ka-Hong Kong’, Berita Harian, 8 July 1963, p. 2; ‘Majlis meraikan P Ramlee ke Hongkong’, Filem Malaysia, 14 Sept. 1963, pp. 11–12; ‘P. Ramlee dan rombongannya ke Hongkong dira'ikan oleh peminat2nya’, Filem Malaysia, 13 Aug. 1963, p. 30.
35 ‘P. Ramlee runsingkan nasib filem2 Melayu masa depan’, Berita Harian, 18 May 1963, p. 7.
36 Ibid.; ‘P. Ramlee hendak buat filem bentok yg baru di-Hong Kong’, Berita Harian, 2 July 1963, p. 2.
37 Ibid.
38 ‘Pembikinan filem Melayu di-Hongkong suatu tuah’, Berita Harian, 20 July 1963, p. 4.
39 In 1965, the Shaws briefly closed down the studio citing high production costs and low returns. This decision was reversed with the intervention of then prime minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman. The MFP formally shut operations in 1967. See Khan, ‘The Malay cinema’, pp. 145, 151–2.
40 Said, Shadows on the silver screen, pp. 49–93; Khan, ‘The Malay cinema (1948–1989)’, pp. 272–3.
41 ‘Benar-kah Ramlee pindah ka-KL kerana kegagalan?’, Berita Harian, 2 May 1964, p. 7.
42 Ahmad Sarji, P. Ramlee: Erti yang sakti (Subang Jaya: Pelanduk, 1999), p. 352.
43 Jamil Sulong, Kaca permata: Memoir seorang pengarah (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1990), p. 130.
44 ‘Pemergian para artis MFP ka-Hong Kong di-tanggohkan’, Berita Harian, 3 Aug. 1963, p. 7.
45 ‘P. Ramlee runsingkan nasib filem2 Melayu masa depan’, Berita Harian, 18 May 1963, p. 7.
46 Arkib Negara Malaysia, P. Ramlee: Seniman agung dunia Melayu: Kumpulan kertas kerja simposium karya seni seniman agung P. Ramlee (Kuala Lumpur: Arkib Negara Malaysia, 2003), p. 32.
47 ‘P. Ramlee AMN akan berangkat ka-Hongkong’, Mastika Filem, June 1963.
48 Michael Fernandez and Loh Kah Seng, ‘The left-wing trade unions in Singapore, 1945–1970’, in Paths not taken: Political pluralism in post-war Singapore, ed. Michael D. Barr and Carl A. Trocki (Singapore: NUS Press, 2008), pp. 206–27; Carl A. Trocki, ‘Development of labour organisation in Singapore, 1800–1960’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 47, 1 (2001): 115–29.
49 Timothy Barnard and Jan van der Putten, ‘Malay cosmopolitan activism in post-war Singapore’, in Barr and Trocki, Paths not taken, p. 146.
50 Khan, ‘The Malay cinema’, p. 147.
51 Ibid., pp. 146–9; Khan, ‘The Malay cinema’, p. 158; Timothy P. Barnard, ‘Film, literature, and context in Southeast Asia’, in Southeast Asian Studies: Debates and new directions, ed. Cynthia Chou and Vincent Houben (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2006), pp. 172–3.
52 Sulong, Jamil, Jamil Sulong: Warisan dan wawasan (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2007), p. 170Google Scholar.
53 Ibid., p. 171; Jarr, Aimi and Malek, Mohd. Zamberi A., Bermulanya filem Melayu (Ampang: Perbadanan Kemajuan Filem Nasional Malaysia, 2009), p. 107Google Scholar.
54 Jamil Sulong took over Ramlee's role as union president in 1964. Jins Shamsuddin became the third president of PERSAMA in 1965, and later, an UMNO politician. See Khan, ‘The Malay cinema’, p. 149; and Harding and Sarji, P. Ramlee, pp. 185–6.
55 Barnard, ‘The Shaw Brothers’ Malay films’, p. 167.
56 Jarr and Malek, Bermulanya filem Melayu, p. 107. Muthalib also noted that the dissatisfaction with P. Ramlee regarding his contribution to the labour struggle had arisen even before this episode. He writes, ‘One of the members of the union at MFP said that when Ramlee was chosen to be the President, he did not really look into elevating the lot of the lower-ranking staff as they had hoped. The Shaw Brothers consulted him on salary raises and other matters but it was [as] if he had turned a blind eye to their sufferings.’ See Muthalib, Malaysian cinema in a bottle, p. 68. A biographer recounts a similar story in Ismail, Ramli, Kenangan abadi P. Ramlee (Kuala Lumpur: Adhicipta, 1998), p. 107Google Scholar.
57 Abi, Filem Melayu: Dahulu dan sekarang, p. 37.
58 ‘1967: News: Shaw Brothers Studios’. BBC Archive (Facebook). 2 Aug. 1967. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/445601275812908/ (accessed 26 May 2022).
59 Some have mentioned that Bintang Kecil was in fact Jins Shamsuddin. See Malek, Mohd. Zamberi A., Suria kencana: Biografi Jins Shamsudin (Bangir: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1998), p. 236Google Scholar.
60 ‘Trajidi perusahaan filem Melayu di-tanah ayer: Kemajuan P. Ramlee patut-nya satu ingatan kapada majikan’, Berita Harian, 27 July 1963, p. 4.
61 Ibid.
62 Hatta Azad Khan notes that ‘[t]he strike at MFP in 1964 almost crippled the industry as well as the company.’ See Khan, ‘The Malay cinema’, p. 158. As Khoo explains: ‘From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, the studios encountered labour problems in the form of union strikes,’ which contributed to the studios’ closing down and to the collapse of the Malay film industry by 1973 [when Cathay-Keris closed down after the MFP]’. See Khoo, Reclaiming adat, p. 91.
63 Ramlee made a number of low-budget, lacklustre films at the ill-equipped Merdeka Studio. His popularity waned rapidly. Muthalib describes this period as Ramlee's ‘fall from grace’. He died of a heart attack on 29 May 1973, at age 45. See Muthalib, Malaysian cinema in a bottle, pp. 66–7.
64 ‘Benar-kah Ramlee pindah ka-KL kerana kegagalan?’, Berita Harian, 2 May 1964, p. 7.