After waiting for 5 whole years, Malaysia’s controversial film “Banglasia” has finally gotten the green light from LPF (Malaysian Film Censorship Board) last week.
The film which has been renamed to “Banglasia 2.0” with a total duration of 92 minutes, will finally meet its Malaysian audience on 28th February 2019 in nationwide cinemas.
Some of the changes requested by LPF to the film include changing the original title from “Banglasia” to “Banglasia 2.0”, cutting 7 scenes which deemed controversial from the movie, and changing the ending to make it more relevant.
“Only the audience at New York Asian Film Festival, Osaka International Film Festival, and Singapore International Film Festival get to see the uncut version of the movie,” Namewee said at the movie’s press conference.
Some of the scenes cut from the film include gun shooting scenes, LGBT-suggestive scenes, a scene mentioning about the “blue card”, and a scene which compares the safety of Malaysians and Singaporeans.
According to Namewee, he is still quite affected that even with the new government, some scenes from the movie were asked to be removed. Moreover, he is also worried for the box office performance when movie debuts.
“I’m quite worried about the box office collection because the time we have to promote the movie is too short,” he said.
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“Other Hollywood films has more than a year of promotion period while normal Malaysian film gets to promote for at least 2 to 3 months, but we only have 1 week to promote this movie,” the entertainer added.
The 35-year-old filmmaker only hopes that he can get back the production budget of the movie which is estimated to be around RM3 million.
With the drama surrounding “Banglasia” finally settled, Namewee said that he may consider shooting films once again. The “Stranger in the North” hit-maker said that he has written more than 30 scripts, but never had the chance to shoot any of them.
“After the film got banned, no one dared to invest in my films. A lot of people are scared, including the actors. Even I’m afraid of shooting films after the incident, because I need to bear all the responsibilities,” he said.
“But if all goes well with ‘Banglasia 2.0’ and I can get back my production budget, I may consider shooting films again,” the award-winning singer-turned-filmmaker said.
“Banglasia 2.0” is a fast-paced action comedy and fictional story of how Malaysians of different races unite to defend the country against foreign invasion with the help of a Bangladeshi worker.
Produced by WebTVAsia, the film features a list of multiracial cast including Namewee himself, famous Bangladeshi actor Nirab Hossain, Saiful Apek, Shashi Tharan, Datuk David Arumugam, Jack Lim, Raja Ilya, Atikah Suhaime and Lao Zha Bor.
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