Tiger WooHoo!

Tiger WooHoo! (大日子)

I have had very little reason to cheer for Malaysian cinema growing up. We were still watching the black and white movies of the late P.Ramlee to soothe the nagging feeling that all was not well with Malaysian modern cinema.

I remember watching this film years ago, with my good friend M, and we went to watch this painful film Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchester; the bad taste of which I had in my mouth still lingering till this very day. Hahaha!

It was poorly shot, poorly scripted and the cast were unbearable to watch. I remember one of the (horribly yucky) lines from the film:

Girl holds banana fritter in her hands and eyes it seductively.

G:Do you know what they call goreng pisang (banana fritter) in Germany?

B: No... What is it called?

G: (with fake British accent) Gaw-ring pee-sang.

[Insert incredulous (as in, I can't believe that crap was in the script) laughter here. By the girl.] [And the audience.]

I really resent how they assumed that the people watching the show had the intelligence of a group of orangutans and that if they threw this rubbish our way, we would just welcome it with open arms.

But Malaysian cinema has inspired hope of recent years - I unashamedly lapped up all of Yasmin Ahmad's works and respected her noble efforts to tell a story and impart life lessons using the big and small screens.

I also remember walking out of Spinning Gasing years ago really enjoying the show, another Malaysian love-story-and-road-trip combination. It had good production values, a stellar cast and weaved great Malaysian tradition with modern city love. Unfortunately, I don't think it did too well commercially.

Which is why I was initially skeptical of Tiger WooHoo!, Malaysia's first homemade Chinese New Year show about the rare tiger dance practised in some parts of Malaysia.

(It only hit me now that we normally see a lion dance, not a tiger one! Woohoo!)

What was interesting, however, was that when I was waiting in line at GSC Megamall trying to buy tickets for the entirely forgettable Hollywood production of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant or James Cameron's epic Avatar, I couldn't help but notice that Tiger Woo Hoo was selling out every evening on a weekday, and completely sold out on weekends.

It was this curiosity that finally brought my Mum and I to the queue one Friday afternoon to buy tickets for the show. And we weren't disappointed. It played to a packed house on a Friday afternoon, and it was a wonderful rollercoaster of laughter and the occasional tears. The camerawork was professional, and the cast was endearing. It was really quite heartwarming!

Okay, so it may not win awards the world over, but at least it's a heck of a start. I have heard it compared to a moderate-sized HK or Taiwan film, which I think is fair enough. And the Malaysian audience appreciate the respect this movie has shown them, and they are repaying it by turning up in droves, and parting gladly with their hard-earned ringgit.

Go watch it with your family!