Director: Tunku Mona Riza
The most exciting thing about the movie is that it was produced and directed by two Malaysian Malays, but there was a single inkling of Malayness in its setting, spoken dialogue and props. It went on to premiere at the Silk Road International Film Festival in Fuzhou, China.
Set in the wettest town in Malaysia, Taiping, hence the title Rain Town, it is a favourite pastime for the local retirees to bet on whether it would rain that day. It follows one of the betters, a proud Mr Choo, to his home. He is a disciplinarian, a domineering figure who runs his home like an army regiment.
He is a father of 3 adult kids, two men and a lady. His wife, a former Ms Taiping, an Anglo-Chinese, had fitted into the family as a docile, all-embracing mother who is the stabilising figure snugged nicely between the silently rebelling children and the all-knowing father. Mr Choo scared the daughter’s suitor away because he was ill-qualified. The girl finds solace in baking cookies and selling them. The elder son is doing his medical internship and struggling to cope with a vocation that his father forced him into. His real love, however, is music. He resorts to recreational drugs to keep on going. The second son has not really settled on what he wants to do in life, but Mr Choo does not hesitate to tell him the obvious. In Mr Choo’s vocabulary, life is a race and the fast wins.
In the midst of all these, Mrs Choo is diagnosed with breast cancer. She keeps it away from the family and tries to handle it herself. Meanwhile, the elder son is expelled from work for stealing drugs. The family has to get together, put aside their differences and solve the problems at hand.
It does not matter who directs the movie or who acts in it. Cultural misappropriation may not be relevant at all. The dynamics of a family can be observed. The pain felt, the frustrations endured, the struggles fought, and the dreams shattered feel pretty equally devastating.
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