APRIL 20 — This week is probably the first time in a very long while that nothing major from the Hollywood studios opened in local cinemas, probably in anticipation of the behemoth that is Avengers: Endgame which will open this coming Thursday. 

The closest we have to a "big” title opening this week is The Curse Of The Weeping Woman, a Conjuring universe movie that had a pretty low-key release, especially compared to other Conjuring-related movies before this.

Then, of course, we have local horror flick Two Sisters, the first of three films slated for release this year by new outfit Kuman Pictures, and two pretty notable films that opened last week to fill our cinema-going schedules.

So if you’re thinking of going to the movies this week, have a look at these titles; they might just be your cup of tea!

Two Sisters

Amir Muhammad’s latest venture, after conquering the world of Malaysian indie book publishing with FIXI, is Kuman Pictures, a film production company concentrating on the horror and thriller genre, with a low budget and auteur-friendly business model that’s a wee bit like Blumhouse. 

Two Sisters, directed by long-time comrade and one of the original godfathers of digital Malaysian indie cinema, James Lee, is Kuman’s first release. 

With a reported budget of only RM260,000 excluding promotion costs, Two Sisters makes clever use of that limitation by telling a story that only needs one major location (which is a big bungalow) and two main actors playing the two sisters of the title, with supporting speaking parts numbering maybe even fewer than 10 people if I remember things correctly.

The story is about one sister, who’s suffered some sort of trauma when she was a kid, finally getting discharged from a mental hospital, and who will be taken care of by the other sister, a successful novelist, in the big old house they used to live in when they were kids. 

As is usually the case in horror flicks like this, the house conjures up nightmarish visions, sightings and memories, all setting things up for the big reveal/twist at the end, which was very neatly done, even if I kind of saw it coming. 

My only gripe is that I just felt that it took forever to get going; the kind of slow burn that will test the patience of some viewers. 

A fair and adequate start for Kuman Pictures, just not the statement big bang that I hoped a first film would be.

Friend Zone

By now I think even a casual fan of regional films, especially Thai films, will have confidence in a movie if it opens with the GDH logo right at the start. 

After producing a string of regional hits like One Day, Bad Genius and Brother of the Year, not to mention the company’s previous incarnation as GTH, which yielded mega-hits like Shutter, Pee Mak, Hello Stranger, SuckSeed and ATM, the sight of that logo feels like a seal of quality. 

That winning streak continues with their latest film Friend Zone, directed by SuckSeed’s Chayanop Boonprakob, a rom-com with a title so descriptive of the film’s content that it can’t possibly get more obvious than that.

It’s a rom-com about a guy and a girl who, after 10 years of being best friends, finally realise that they want more. 

It’s that simple, and it’s as funny, sad, joyous and obvious as you imagine this kind of story to be. 

So if you’re looking for an original rom-com, this is not and was never designed for someone like you. 

But if you’re one of those who can sometimes take comfort in the soothing nature of the familiar, like a good tuck into your favourite (and therefore very familiar) tub of ice cream, Friend Zone will be a breezy, brainless and entertaining two-hour ride that will leave you smiling, and maybe even shed a tear or two if you’re in the right mood.

Fighting with My Family

Anyone who grew up in the 80s, especially those from working class families, will always have wrestling in their hearts, with names like Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, the Undertaker and Ric Flair forever etched in their memories, providing moments of pure drama and elation. 

We know that it’s all staged, but we can’t help ourselves anyway, which is why Dwayne "The Rock” Johnson is one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, and why we will always root for John Cena whenever he appears in movies.

Fighting with My Family, like Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, is a wrestling backstage drama, which is already an irresistible concept, but it becomes even more irresistible here because it’s based on the real life story of female wrestler Paige, the youngest WWE Divas champion and who is still just 27 years old when this movie came out. 

Imagine that, a movie being made about you, and you’re still only 27!

It tracks her life from her early days of wrestling with her family in the independent circuit in Norwich, England, to her tryout with the WWE and the training and grooming she has to go through to try and make it with the WWE in America and her eventual triumph as a WWE Divas champion. 

Since this is a film and not a documentary, director Stephen Merchant (of the TV series Hello Ladies fame) took a few creative liberties in order to maximize the film’s dramatic potential and to make the story more streamlined, but quite a lot of it is pretty true to life, and Fighting with My Family does the Paige story full justice. 

In short, it rocks, like all great wrestling events do.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.