KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 12 — The cinematic appetite for South-east Asian (SEA) fare has been on the rise over the last few years.
While Hollywood blockbusters still dominate (side-eyes MCU), more regional films have been breaking records post-pandemic — from raking it in at the domestic box-office numbers to grabbing a bigger share in global takings.
Here are just some of the films across SEA that offer a glimpse of just what the future of SEA cinema holds..
The phenomenon of Thailand’s ‘How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies’
Since its premiere in Thailand on April 4, Thai filmmaker Pat Boonitipat’s How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies topped the local box-office, raking in a total of 334 million Thai Baht (RM41 million) according to Deadline.
The slice-of-life family drama has also made an impression across other SEA countries where it has also taken the lead of highest grossing Thai film in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Philippines with a global box office takings of around 1 billion Thai Baht (RM125.3 million) with 10 million admissions.
The film has managed to garnered RM8.4 million in Malaysia’s box office collection in just 10 days and has taken over the all time highest grossing Thai film here which was previously held by the 2017’s Bad Genius according to CinemaOnline.
Indonesia’s back to back screen pleasers
Although box-office earnings are not publicly available in Indonesia, admission numbers serve as the main data tracking in films performance there.
Indonesia's new local all-time top-grossing film, is Awi Suryadi’s horror film KKN Di Desa Penari in 2022 which has over 10 million admissions.
This is closely followed by the 2024 horror comedy Agak Laen directed by Ernest Prakasa which garnered a total of 9,125,188 admissions.
Away from the big screen, it is worth noting that the streaming series, Gadis Kretek (2023) on Netflix where actress Dian Sastrowardoyo has knocked it out of the park in her role as Dasiyah has earned praise from global film critics.
Meanwhile, Joko Anwar’s anthology series Nightmares and Daydreams (2024) which consist of tales of supernatural and sci-fi phenomena has garnered an audience rating of 81 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Philippines and Vietnam joined the party
The Philippines and Vietnam have also reached new heights with box-office collections.
The 2023 Rewind, directed by Mae Cruz Alviar and starring real-life husband and wife Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera earned about 900 million Philippine Peso (RM68.8 million) in global gross making it the highest grossing local film there.
It beats the 2019’s Hello, Love, Goodbye which grossed a total of 691 million Philippine Peso (RM52.8 million).
According to Deadline, Rewind is also the first Filipino film to surpass the US$16 million (RM71.2 million) mark at the global box office.
For Vietnam, this year’s Mai directed by comedian Tran Thanh collected a whopping VND500 billion (RM88.1 million) at the local box-office
Mai takes over as highest-grossing Vietnamese movie from 2023’s Nha Ba Nu (The House of No Man) which was also directed by Thanh.
And don't count Malaysia out
It's been a healthy period for Malaysian cinema post-pandemic, with 2023’s Abang Adik directed by Jin Ong being the first Malaysian film to break the Taiwan box office by collecting NT$90 million (RM13.5 million).
The award-winning family drama film had also raked in RM5.2 million at the local box office after 24 days of screening.
The highest grossing Malaysian film of all time is still being held by Syamsul Yusof’s Mat Kilau (2022) with a total gross of RM97 million which surpassed the total takings of of MCU’s Avengers:Endgame at the local box office of RM87.12 million .
Over the last couple of years however, the numbers in second and third spots have changed with Syafiq Yusof’s Sheriff: Narko Integriti (2024) now in second place with RM60 million collected while his Polis Evo 3 (2023) comes in third with the film's total gross at RM50.1 million.
