26 Nov - The Force is strong in Malaysia. So much so that a bunch of pranksters managed to fool innocent shoppers that The Force is in fact, real. In the video, a sinister looking guy (presumably from the Dark Side) in a hooded jacket is seen walking around and with the swish of his hand(s), unleashes an 'invisible force' that makes those close to him get thrown towards the floor. Many unsuspecting shoppers seemed stunned with puzzlement and some even ran away in fear, but little did they know that almost a hundred people and hidden cameras were in on the prank including the hooded guy and those whose perfect coordination of throwing themselves around made the whole stunt look pretty real! Cinema Online's former editorial intern, Wessley C. A. Danker from ABOI TV who is part of the team that made this happen, tells us that the idea for the prank came about from the ABOI TV team and another well-known team of pranksters, MaxmanTV, which are both based in Malaysia.
"As ABOI TV are an upcoming group of pranksters seeking for opportunities, MaxmanTV initially assigned this task to us where we had to carry out this prank but on a smaller scale." MaxmanTV thought the prank was good enough to promote to brands and Maybank got on board for ABOI TV and MaxmanTV's "Using The Force in Public Prank". Around 60 to 70 'actors' was involved in carrying out the prank at shopping malls like The Curve, Ikano Power Centre (IPC), One Utama, Midvalley and Nu Sentral. But with carrying out a prank of this scale, did the pranksters face any challenges? "Only by the security guards where they questioned whether we had permission to shoot in the premises, which we did." said Wessley.
He added that the prank turned out really well and the team is overjoyed with the response. "We feel absolutely overwhelmed and thrilled that the video was watched and shared hundreds of times. These unexpected outcomes have motivated us to bring more pranks to the table and bring Malaysia to the next level." The video has been viewed on MaxmanTV's Facebook page over 93 thousand times to date. Apart from local sites, coverage on the prank was also picked up by Mirror.co.uk, the online edition of the U.K. tabloid, The Daily Mirror.