WITH Mat Kilau: Kebangkitan Pahlawan (The Rise of a Warrior) running successfully in cinemas, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) from the Sikh community criticised its makers of making a villain out of other communities in the fictional narrative of a real-life warrior.
“While we understand that it has fictional components in a historical film, it contains elements that may create religious and racial misunderstanding.
“Hence, we humbly urge the Malaysian film industry not to produce movies at the expense of hurting religious and racial sentiments,” it said in a Facebook post.
The hit movie stars Datuk Adi Putra as the legendary Malay warrior, along with Beto Kusyairi, Fattah Amin, Yayan Ruhan and Johan As’ari.
While many have lauded the movie, several quarters mentioned that it has depicted several minority communities in a negative way.
Sikhs barred from harming the weak
On that note, the Sikh group said that one of the problems they had with the movie was how their community was depicted in it.
“We saw that turbaned-Sikhs, who were British soldiers in the movie, were portrayed to have roughed up old folks, children and helpless citizens. These parts were added by the producers to make a compelling storyline.
“But the Sikh code of practice had always prohibited anyone from laying their hands on old folks, children, women and helpless citizens, even during war.
“Whilst the controversial scenes in the movie are fictional, it is distasteful and hurts the sentiments of Sikhs,” the group remarked. – July 8, 2022
