Finding his place
> Chew Kin Wah has been kept busy with acting offers in Indonesia, but is struggling to find similar work back home
comes to acting. Maybe I need to be in some Hollywood production to get their attention.”
He explains that the Malaysian film industry is more keen on hiring youthful actors in the lead roles.
“I am not in my prime anymore, and ageing actors like me get limited roles,” he says.
He suggested that perhaps the Malaysian film industry should make more films with older actors in the lead roles, something along the line of Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables.
“Maybe we could be robbing a bank,” he says. “I would love to act opposite Jalaluddin Hassan.”
He points out that the Malaysian film industry is really broken into three categories – the Malay-Malaysian film industry, the Chinese-Malaysian film industry, and the Indian-Malaysian film industry.
“In all their productions, you rarely see a mixed-race cast,” he says.
“In Chinese-Malaysian film productions, everyone is Chinese. The same goes with Indian-Malaysian productions and Malay-Malaysian productions.
“I remember watching a local Chinese TV show where the whole court case is done in the Mandarin language. Tell me, which court case in Malaysia is done in Mandarin? I thought our national language is Bahasa Malaysia.
“Oddly enough, our advertisements will have a multiracial cast. Only in our advertisements, we are ‘Malaysia, truly Asia’.”
Besides missing out on the local Malay-language film industry, Chew has also been largely ignored by the Chinese-speaking film industry. He thinks this is due to his lack of proficiency in Mandarin. (Chew speaks both English and Malay fluently.)
However, he points out that for his role in Terbang Menembus Langit, he learned to speak Bugis and Bahasa Indonesia. “If I can learn to speak Bugis and Bahasa Indonesia, I can take the trouble to learn Mandarin if I am offered a role in a Chinese film production,” he says. He confesses to not being fussy, adding that he will take any roles that comes his way. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” he says. “I do not mind playing a Chinese gangster speaking broken Malay, again. At least, I can go back to my house and sleep on my bed and have breakfast at my favourite kopitiam. My family and friends are here. Indonesia is a nice place, but Malaysia is still my home.” Yet he is not bitter about about his predicament. “Life is too short to be bitter,” he says with a laugh.