My Hometown Heroes

Just yesterday, I found out that the film 'Adiwiraku' won the Best Film Category for the 29th Malaysia Film Festival 2017.

I had heard about the story that inspired the making of this film before, as it happened in my hometown of Sungai Petani, Kedah. It tells about the choral speaking team from SMK Pinang Tunggal winning 5th place for the Choral Speaking Competition of the Kuala Muda/Yan District Level! I feel so proud hearing this! I even shared this news on my facebook because I was so excited and elated! Because, SUNGAI PETANI! Why is it such an extraordinary feat? SMK Pinang Tunggal is a rural school where the students generally have low proficiency in the English language. So, it's a remarkable achievement for them to be able to memorize a 15-minutes choral speaking script written in English- as said by the main actress, and agreed everyone, at that. I am one proud Sungai Petani-an! 

Nevertheless, a gem discovered in my beloved SP! I just left the story there, not thinking much about it, feeling rather satisfied.

Little did I know that someone out there wasn't going to let this matter at rest, and that someone must have been deeply touched by this story that he decided to make a film out of this, and that this film eventually won Best Film in this year's Malaysia Film Festival!

This film was released on cinema last MARCH! How come I didn't know? Lack of promotions, maybe? 

And hence, the moment I found out about the existence of this film, I knew that I must watch it, pronto! Naturally, I searched for it on youtube, LOL. Of course it's not available there, only the trailer. But you know what, the trailer even made me go all emotional! *sobs*. 

I must watch it! Or else I could not sleep! I can't even find any legit website selling the original DVD or else I would and must buy it on the spot! I don't even have Astro. And well, after digging further into the wonderful world of Google search results, I found a website where I could stream this movie. DO NOT FOLLOW THIS EXAMPLE. THIS IS C'EST ABOMINABLE!

But I do not have much choices, right? But really, if they released a DVD of this film, then I would buy the ORIGINAL DVD. 

And well, here are the thoughts that I jotted down while watching this film. Such a note taker I am!

1. I love the premise of an Indian teacher and a Chinese teacher helping and inspiring the Malay students to excel. This is really touching as I had heard and even encountered a number of racist people and racial issues that later made me lose hope towards the concept of integration and tolerance. I mean, we are all Malaysians, right? Chinese, Indian, Malay, Iban, Kadazan, Dayak, Senoi, we should be helping each other towards success. Let's become successful together!

 But of course, God won't help you if you don't help yourself. In this case, the students helped themselves as well!

2.  Of both teachers watching the choral speaking video of the students from SIN MIN! SIN MIN? WHAT THE HECK! The reason for this incredulity will be explained later, LOL.

3. Of them recruiting the students to join the choral speaking team, even bribing those students with foods. We need foods! Foods are important!

4. Those beautiful, picturesque scenes of the paddy fields. OMG I miss Kedah so much! *cries while being stuck here surrounded by limestone caves*

Eh wait I just realized we could now put emojis on our blog posts! I had been blogging for almost 10 years already and FINALLY! 😊😊😊

5. The teachers wrote their own choral speaking script! Wow! I remember during my time, we just took any texts from the internet. No wonder we didn't win first place. 😅

Oh, just to tell you that I had been a part of my school's Choral Speaking Team for 2 years (Form 1 and Form 2). We won 2nd and 3rd places only. Never the first. WHY? Perhaps it's due to number 5. 

6. The memories of staying back after school almost every day just to practise our Choral Speaking. Even had to do ketuk ketampi each time we stuttered or stammered. Still didn't get first place. Only got aching legs. 💁

7. The amusing scene of Miss Fernando correcting the students' pronunciations. I laughed really hard at this scene. Their Kedahan dialects are too strong!

"SMK Pinang Tunggai,"

"TunggaL!"

"Tunggai!"

"TunggaL!" 

8. The background music. So touching. Appropriately inserted in certain scenes to express sadness, happiness, frustration and many other emotions.

9. Okay, I almost cried watching the scene whereby a girl named Kemboja had to work at the Petrol Station to support herself and her ailing father. She opened up the biscuit tin and found out there are only 2 pieces of biscuits left, to which she placed both of those biscuits onto her father's tupperware which has medications in it. *cries* 

"Teacher pernah tak tak makan 2-3 hari?" 😧

10. School bag with a big torn and hole in it that the school books just fell out of it. OMG. I had taken my beg sekolah for granted all these while.

11. A girl who took care of her mother with a mental problem, also got constantly beaten by her mentally-unsound mother. 

I feel so sad for these kids! I don't know, I felt speechless. I had taken my life for granted all these while. My parents had provided everything I needed when I was at school but you know, you tend to compare yourselves with your friends who could afford to buy expensive novels every week (okay, mostly jealous because of this LOL) and having cool stationery set and complete set of Stabilo gel liners (which you don't really need, actually) and the new Nokia N-Gage and Nokia Express Music (while you only had a Motorola phone without a camera, still, it's polyphonic with coloured screen- a big upgrade from Nokia 3310) when in fact, there are other people who are much less unfortunate than you are! Forget about having stationery or whatnots, those kids don't even have foods to eat! This is the sad reality of life. In the future when I have kids of my own, I would show them this film! (from the original DVD of which I'm going to buy later once they released it, LOL). 

12. The day of the choral speaking competition, held in SMK Sungai Pasir. I had been attending various events and competitions held at this school. Back then, SMK Sg. Pasir boasted the biggest and grandest hall so almost all district level competitions were held there, AT THE SCHOOL HALL! And it definitely brought back memories of my school days (which most of them are not good, LOL. I did not enjoy my school life to be truthful). 

13. Sin Min choral speaking team appeared once again. What's with them? They won the choral speaking competition for that year and the previous year, is it? During my time, there would only be these 3 schools in the Kuala Muda/Yan district who would dominate the Top 3 places. Convent (my school), Ibrahim (school next door) and Sin Min (another neighboring school). So you can see that we are rivals. The hate triangle relationship. 

14. A cameo of this teacher in charge of the Sin Min Choral Speaking Team. She is actually the ex-principal of Convent (not during my time but I've heard about her, LOL). 

14. SMK Pinang Tunggal was announced as the fifth place winner for this competition. Not a single mention of who won the Top 3 and I assume, no prize guessing who won the Top 3 in the competition, right? LOL. 

End of note. 

I love this movie. It's rare that a movie could constantly evoke many sorts of emotions that ran through my mind, heart and eventually my eyes from the beginning till the end. I didn't cry though. I got strong! 

YOU should watch this film. I'm not going to promote piracy by giving you the link. You have to find it by yourself, LOL. Or buy the DVD! Good luck!