Malaysia’s Dain Said first appeared in the pages of Twitch with Dukun. The debut feature from the prominent commercial director was a shocking, ripped from the headlines affair – a true story revolving around black magic and murder.
Or at least that’s what we’re told. Nobody really knows because the film was ultimately blocked from release in Malaysia and has scarcely been seen since its completion.
But he is back now with his sophomore effort. Titled Bunohan the film is the story of a family caught up in a web of violence that may destroy them all. The first trailer for Bunohan was recently released to great response around the world and I had the chance to talk to its creator a little while back.
TB: We should maybe start with your previous film, which we covered a fair bit at Twitch. Can you tell us a bit about Dukun and what happened with it as far as release?
DS: Okay, yes. I’m laughing a bit only because that film seems to have its own haunting. I don’t think it’ll ever rest, if I can put it that way.
The film actually started with a friend of mine who was a producer. She came out of marketing at Buena Vista. She called me out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to do this film. I had always wanted to do a film and thought it would be a great story because not often do we get films that are based on a real story that happened in Malaysia. So I said yes and right off we had a meeting and we planned it and she said “Can we get this going within this time?” It was about three months for the script to be written. I immediately said, “Yeah, I know the right person.” He is a playwright here. As you know part of the film was set in court and this friend of mine was familiar with legal language, court systems and so on. But he’s also a playwright. So that’s what happened and we went out and shot it.
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