“The Journey”, released in 2014, grossed RM16.87 million to become the 10th highest-grossing Malaysian film of all time.
Now Chiu makes his directorial debut in China with “On Your Mark”, an uplifting tale of a father who helps his son, who has multiple sclerosis, to run a marathon.
The film topped the Chinese box office on its opening day on June 18, and has since earned the equivalent of RM51 million.
The movie was co-produced by Astro Shaw, the sole Malaysian producer that will soon distribute the film in Southeast Asia.
Chiu first heard about the storyline of “On Your Mark” when he presented the movie “Ola Bola” at the Shanghai Film Festival in 2016.
“A producer came to me with this story after the ‘Ola Bola’ screening and I found it quite interesting,” Chiu says in an interview with the South China Morning Post. “I was really moved by the story and decided to take part in it.”
Chiu is not the first local director to achieve commercial success in China. “Sheep Without A Shepherd “(2019), a Thailand-set thriller directed by Penang-born Sam Quah, became the highest-grossing film at the Chinese box office during its opening weekend in December 2019.
“Local producers and creative talent in both Malaysia and China are very similar in terms of their passion for producing good films,” Chiu says.
Universal stories
The success of filmmakers like Chiu and Quah may be less related to their being Malaysian, and more due to the universality of their stories.
“Just how ‘Malaysian’ can these blockbusters be, when the actors are well-known East Asian film stars, and the stories are universal enough to be set anywhere or adapted into any cultural context?” asks Gaik Cheng Khoo, professor of film and television studies at the University of Nottingham Malaysia.
Fellow academic Thomas Barker, at the same university, says local filmmakers are capable of navigating China’s industry and networks.
“They know how to hustle and can apply their visual storytelling skills,” he says. “They don’t need to be 100% fluent in Mandarin as they are behind the camera, whereas Malaysian actors have struggled to get a foothold in China because of their accents.”