First of all, I would like to make it clear that this post is totally from my personal point of view. I paid for the ticket myself (not being sponsored like others) and I am entitled for my comments. As soon as I finished watching this movie, I tweeted some of my review on Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, some of my friends agreed with it while there are a number of them did not. One even said that if I had so much to say on that movie, maybe I should make my own film. Which is totally nonsense; if I am a movie producer, I might produce a film. However, I am not. It’s like saying a carpenter should be a businessman, while the businessman should be a carpenter.

Truth to be told, I dozed off few minutes during the first half of the movie; and I rarely dozed off while watching a movie. (This is the second time and the first time was while watching Underdog Soldier). All in all, the CGI effects are commendable, worth the 8 million spent to make the movie. However, the overall film is a little bit gloomy and uninspired, apart from the fighting scenes. The details from the CGI are washed out by the gloominess of the color of the film.

The main actor, Stephen Rahman-Hughes as Merong Mahawangsa is praiseworthy, but when his dialogs keep changing from Malay to English, it’s distracting my attention throughout the movie. At one point, the dialog between Merong Mahawangsa and Prince Marcus (Gavin Stenhouse) on the ship, while fighting are so gayish, I almost half expecting that they will kiss each other. Marcus and Lycius (Hendrik Norman) dialogs are mostly stiff and confined by the script.

The antagonist character, Kamawas, played by Khir Rahman excelled in his deliverance of the evil sense of being. The characters of the Chinese Princess (Jing Lu) and Ying Ying (Nell Ng) are injecting humor in the film. Embok, played by Ummi Nazeera also added a little bit of color to the film. Even though Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa is an epic film, it doesn’t need to be boring. I still love the Puteri Gunung Ledang (a Malay movie few years back) much more than Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa. Nevertheless, I gave this movie 3.5/5 stars!