Cinemagoing in Malaysia
- T. Bruce Howie
- Jan 1
- 8 min read
Since I’m still working in Malaysia till February, I’ve been wondering about whether my connections to cinema will waver during my time here. There’s not much I want to see out at the moment, and release times are weird here – Nosferatu, one of my most anticipated films of the year, released on New Year’s Eve in Australia (when I wasn’t in Melbourne) and will release in February 27th in Malaysia (when I’ll be back in Australia and it’ll probably be gone, except for maybe a couple of showings at the Nova). Plus, there isn’t that much interesting stuff releasing on Netflix at the moment, or the local equivalent Tonton, which seems to entirely consist of Indian sitcoms.
But I’ve been to the cinemas here a couple of times already, to see big Hollywood films that I should probably watch ahead of the Oscars so I can moan when Wicked does a category sweep. And while the fundamental experience of getting a comfy chair, watching half an hour of ads and then a movie on the big screen with some asshole filming behind you with the flash on isn’t much different, there’s some interesting differences that I think Melbourne cinemagoers would find fascinating. So here’s the rundown on some key differences between Melbourne and Malaysia, plus some cultural venting:
Independent Cinema
No, I’m not referring to independently made micro-budget films with no dialogue designed to be forgotten at Sundance, but rather places like Cinema Nova in Carlton or the Lido Cinemas in Glenferrie, which are devoted to the screening and celebration of uncommercial films that larger chains like Hoyts and Village wouldn’t show. I love going to those places to see movies I wouldn’t have otherwise heard of, and they’re probably my main movie source back in Melbourne – I don’t even think any of my Top Ten films of this year were available at Hoyts or Village, except maybe Memoir of a Snail.
But such independent cinemas are non-existent in Malaysia, even in the more liberal, fancier areas of Kuala Lumpur like Bukit Bintang. There are essentially just two major cinema chains in Kuala Lumpur, Tanjong Golden Village (TGV) and Golden Screen Cinemas (GSC), which I’m not even entirely convinced are different companies. They’re a lot like the Hoyts of Malaysia, with 3-D and D-BOX and ATMOS available, but only showing big Hollywood films or big Chinese/Singaporean films. Even if Malaysia weren’t conservative about sex and violence in their films, I doubt I’ll be seeing Anora on one of their big screens anytime soon.
It’s an interesting phenomenon across all sectors in Malaysia, where no industry seems to have small independent businesses involved. You’ll find 50 Starbucks, 30 Coffee Bean and Teas, 100 Zus Coffees, but no Aina’s Americanos or Hartono’s Hovel o’ Hot Goodness. Maybe a camping table outside a train station selling instant coffee, but that’s about it. It’s kind of hard to find a particular connection with any establishment, considering the staff are just casual licensees and everything’s so small.
Pricing
First off, thanks to CinemaOnline for keeping track of all of Malaysia’s cinema data, because they are far clearer than any of the actual cinema websites. Trying to navigate GSC’s website for showtimes requires you to go into their website, sign up for a membership, click around for a while, click on the film you want, then scroll infinitely to click on the cinema you want, and then book your seats and go through three pages of concession details. Awful.
Anyway, my local cinema at Mid Valley Megamall prices tickets at around RM 35 for adults and RM 15 for seniors, children and students before 6pm. If you’re wondering about conversion, that’s about AUD $12 for adults and $6 for concession (including myself as a student). By comparison, my local Palace cinema in Pentridge costs around $21 a session and around $15.50 for student members such as myself. So totally better, right? Head right down to Malaysia and all your money problems go away!
Putting aside how barely any of the films I want to see actually get shown at these places, these conversions don’t reflect the cost-of-living situation for Malaysians. The minimum wage in Malaysia is RM 7.2 (soon to rise to RM 8.72), which is less than $3 an hour. Australia, meanwhile, has a minimum wage of $24.10 an hour, or $30.15 if you do casual work like me.
If I were to do my mental calculations of how many work hours it takes to buy something, my minimum wage job pays 1 movie ticket per half-hour, or 2 t/h. By comparison, an adult working a full-time minimum wage job in Malaysia would only have enough to buy a movie ticket after 4.86 hours, or 0.206 t/h. So while movie tickets are nice if you have that Australian dosh already in your account to convert, it doesn’t work so well if you’re making that money yourself here.
Interestingly, cinemas seem to be the only major entertainment industry in Malaysia that doesn’t have separate prices for Malaysians and foreigners - it's RM 35 for both. For instance, a National Zoo ticket costs RM 38 for locals but RM 72 for me, as the business has factored in the cost-of-living conversion for foreigners. Additionally, if you go to the bartering markets in Petaling Street, shop owners will try and barter for much higher prices with you than Malaysian customers, as they know what’s significant for them is relatively insignificant to you. I wonder if this is a result of the monopoly that GSC and TGV have in this country, or because they simply don’t expect many tourists to show up. Either way, I think the many migrant workers who live near my apartment would probably be relieved they don’t have to do 12 hours of work to see Wicked, in more ways that one.
Buying concessions and tickets
I’ve already mentioned the rigamarole of trying to pay for a ticket online, but unlike Australia, there isn’t an extra booking fee on top of online ticket payments, so you may as well just use that. However, you can buy tickets straight from the venue if you want to, but the process isn’t just “wearily walk up to the desk and ask the cashier for ticket to 5:10PM Wicked screening”.
It’s similar to how Hoyts in Northland and Melbourne Central goes about things, where there’s automated screens outside each cinema that allow you to just buy your tickets and concessions right there. It prints out a ticket with a QR code and a concessions receipt with another QR code, because everything in Malaysia is paid for with QR code (in the future it’s going to be like Elysium where everyone just has them burned onto their wrists). The concession worker scans your receipt, the turnstile scans your ticket, and you get in there. No time wasted and the concession worker doesn’t even address you (to be fair, I’ve had some odd encounters with cashiers who can't speak English or Malay). A bit impersonal, but slightly more efficient. Kinda like the opposite of the Wicked adaptation - a bit personal, but much less efficient.
What’s actually shown
Malaysia is a country famous for its ethnic and cultural diversity, split between ethnic Malays, Indians of all descents, Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese immigrants, Middle Eastern influences, Eurasians descended from the Portuguese and so on and so forth. So the major cinema chains do have a more eclectic showing of source countries than a chain like Hoyts, which is entirely American with a little Bollywood and half an Australian film shown every now and then.
Looking at the current lineup of films at Mid Valley (again sourced from CinemaOnline, which also tells me the languages and available subtitles), there’s films in Malay, English, Indonesian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean all showing concurrently, with some of their bigger upcoming releases also being in Hindi and Tamil. So there’s quite a linguistic diversity to the films being shown, although they’re primarily Asian films being targeted at specific ethnic groups. Back in Melbourne, you’d find a similar diversity over at the Nova, which according to their current schedule has films in Malayalam, Hindi, Gaelic, French, Italian, German, Farsi, Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, Polish and Thai showing this week. But that’s an indie chain showing artsy prestige films, which can come from any country and be any genre they want to be. Malaysian cinema doesn’t quite have the wriggle room for those kinds of films, and the ones available at the cinemas here aren’t very diverse.
Most of the movies I just mentioned from other Asian countries are action thrillers, like Donnie Yen’s The Prosecutor, or lower-budget horror films like the Indonesian Lembayung. The only exception seems to be the Cantonese-language The Last Dance, a slow drama about a funeral director, but only because it’s apparently the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong of all time (and they’re really banking on it, considering it’s four weeks in and it’s got more showings than Mufasa released last week by frikkin’ Disney.) All of these films come with English, Malay and Mandarin subtitles, although English-language films only have the latter two (so if you’re watching Wicked and trying to piece together the lyrics through the shitty sound mixing, you can just read the Malay subtitles to understand it).
As for the actual Malay films being shown, most of them are also action thrillers, or horror, or one Cocomelon-looking animated family film, and that’s it. I suppose I can’t complain as an Australian though, considering that Hoyts and Village only screen one properly Australian film a year, usually a dumb kids movie or an extremely bland drama, and chuck all the good scraps like Monolith and Memoir of a Snail to the Nova.
The problem in Malaysia is that there isn’t really a Nova or a Sun Theatre or a Lido or a Classic to chuck to, and the age of Malaysian underground films has ground to a halt considering the content overload of films on streaming. So Malaysians don’t have the opportunity to go see themselves kicking ass on the big screen for local productions, but because of the accent and racism barrier, they can’t break it in Hollywood like Australians can. In fact, looking at an interesting Wikipedia article about Asian Academy Award winners, the only notes on Malaysia I can find are British documentary producers of Malaysian descent and the guy who edited The Crying Game. No Malaysian actors or filmmakers working in America, just Eurasian guys working in Britain.
So yeah, cinemagoing in Malaysia would not be on the top of my list for reasons to movie here. It’s certainly not an awful experience, but there really isn’t that much of an interesting cinematic culture here, as the demand seems to be entirely the lowest common denominator stuff for each of the major ethnic groups plus some broad Hollywood affairs, and there’s little personality to the actual cinemas. I know I should go and hug all my family members when I get back to the airport, but I also want to get on the number 19 tram, head to the Nova, buy a $10 Monday ticket (because I’ll be back to unemployment and have nothing else to do), watch some boring Spanish film, and sigh with joy.
Then the 20th week showing of Wicked will vibrate through the walls, and I'll yell back "it was a 4 out of 10 at most, dammit!"
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