Writer: Nur Safina Othman

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Watch this if you liked: "Ciplak"

Malaysian film "Karaoke" by first-time filmmaker Chris Chong successfully nabbed the first Maverick award at the 10th annual Calgary International Film Festival 2009 in Canada. Proudly enough, his debut feature film was only the second Malaysian feature film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival after 14 years.

Built around the concept of Malaysian styled karaoke videos with plenty of booze, "Karaoke" is about Betik (Zahiril Adzim) who returns to his hometown from the hustle and bustle city of Kuala Lumpur. His hometown has a palm tree estate that was previously rich in biodiversity, but is now engulfed by concrete. Betik intends on helping his mum (Mislina Mustaffa) with the family's karaoke business, but is shocked to discover that a decision has been made for the shop to be sold in order for the family to start a new life.

If you pay close attention to the movie, there are a couple of underlining messages delivered through metaphors. It brings focus to the disappointment between a mother and her child and towards the modern developments that has destroyed the many wonderful places abundant with greenery. We can observe how mankind is so easily fooled by nature's beauty that they don't realise how long it takes to create it and take it for granted. Apart from that, it touches on how things change over the course of time. Before returning home, Betik recalls his beautiful hometown with no pollution and also his mother's excitement upon seeing him returning home. However, he is saddened to know that what he had hoped for did not come true.

The character Betik is played by Zahiril Adzim, Best Promising Actor at the 22nd Malaysian Film Festival 2009. Zahiril mentioned that all of the actors in the movie were advised by Chris to act natural and embrace their characters. Nonetheless, Zahiril should be praised for his acting performance in which he initially said was very hard to play. Apart from him and Mislina, "Karaoke" also stars Nadiya Nissa, Mohammad Hariry and Amerul Affendi.

"Karaoke" is a movie based on living in the modern world delightfully laced together with some very entertaining and catchy tunes.

Cinema Online, 13 November 2009