"Surf This Love: Gelora Juara" will be director Waan Hafiz's attempt to bring the extreme sport of surfing onto the big screen, making it the first Malaysian movie that centres on the water sport. The movie follows Billy, an amateur surfer who dreams of becoming the new world champion, following in his brother's footsteps who was one of the legendary Trio Malaya. The movie stars Shukri Yahaya, Pekin Ibrahim, Cristina Suzanne, Ardell Aryana, Josiah Hogan, and Syuhaida Abraz. At the "Surf This Love: Gelora Juara" gala premiere held at eCurve, Cinema Online managed to get lead actor Shukri Yahaya to talk more about his experiences and his newfound love for surfing.
Cinema Online: "Surf This Love: Gelora Juara" is a movie that is focused on surfing. Did you have any experience surfing prior to this movie? Shukri Yahaya: No, not at all. I thought with my combined knowledge of skating and swimming, it would help ease my way through surfing, but apparently not. It was quite difficult for me to readjust myself from a skateboard to a surfboard. That's why I received some injuries along the way. What kind of injuries? Just scratches from the corals on the bedrock of the ocean; nothing too serious. The biggest one was when my arm cramped up while I was paddling on the board. I was quite far off in the sea when it happened and I knew I needed to paddle back to shore for safety. So what I did was I slowly paddled with my other arm then rested when I felt tired. Then I continued paddling again and repeated the whole process until I got to safety. It was a slow movement but that was the only safe way I could go about it.
After watching yourself surfing in this movie, do you think it was worth the physical sacrifices you have made? Yes, it was worth it but I wouldn't say I'm good at it though. I still have a lot to learn about surfing. Do you have any plans to continue surfing or has it stopped once you finished filming this movie? Of course I'll continue to surf because I'm really interested in it now. When we were shooting in Bali, I didn't have much time to surf by myself other than surfing for the movie, so I really want to head back and surf on my own. I just bought a new surfboard made in Bali and I look forward to riding the waves there; maybe starting with smaller ones first. I heard the waves in April are perfect for beginners like me. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself as a surfer now? Definitely a 1! I still have plenty much to learn about surfing and the fundamentals of it. I made some surfer friends at Tioman when we shot the movie there, so I'm hoping I could learn from them before going to Bali.