BRAVE

Brave Movie Poster

Brave is one of those movies where all the parents will be dragged to by their kids. This movie is one of those traditional Disney movies where there's a princess, the queen, the kind, and an old witch who lives in the woods. Sadly it is not one of those original groundbreaking movies like; Wall-E and Up. 

Princess Merida

This movie is about a young princess, Merida, a Scottish tomboy who loves archery, horse riding, rock climbing and just to be a free spirit during the medieval in Scotland. She was given a bow as an early birthday gift, which inspired her to be the best archer in the kingdom. However, her mother, Queen Elinor constantly tries to teach Merida how to be a lady so that she can grow into her future role as a queen. 

Queen Elinor

Queen Elinor forces her daughter, Merida to choose among three possible candidates to be her husband. Merida runs away into the forest and stumbles upon a witch's cottage. Merida was then granted a wish and she wished for her mother to change her mind. Unfortunately for the both of them, the spell casted did not change Queen Elinor's mind, but turned her into a bear. Queen Elinor and Merida have two days to reverse the charm. They then started working together and grew closer while finding ways to reverse it. This movie sends a very warming message to audiences about improving communication between mothers and daughters. Many parents do not understand how their children feel and why do they want or do things differently, and children don't know that parents only want what they think is best for them.

Brave, when Queen Elinor turned into a bear

Picture of Brother Bear

I have realised that Brave and Brother Bear are very similar. In Brave, Queen Elinor is transformed into a bear by the witch's spell. In Brother Bear, an Inuit boy name Kenai is turned into a bear because he killed a bear revenging his brother, and angered the spirits. Brave and Brother bear both have scenes of the human turned into a bear and trying to adjust to the lifestyle of a bear. Both of the movies have the fishing scenes which are almost identical. After adjusting to becoming a bear and understanding the life of another, in both movies, the bear is threatened to be killed by a loved one as they do not recognize the bear. At the end, in both the movies the one who is turned into a bear learns his/her lesson and is transformed back to human form again at the last second. Both Brother Bear and Brave are Disney movies. It is surprising that nobody in Disney have said anything when producing Brave, as Brother Bear came out first. Being so similar kills joy of audiences. "Again??!"

Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

  Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa Movie Poster

Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa,  also known as The Malay Chronicles: Bloodlines & Clash of Empires: The Battle for Asia in the United Kingdom. This movie was made in 2011 based on the 16th century document Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa. This film is directed by Yusry Abdul Halim, starring Stephen Rahman Hughes as Merong Mahawangsa, who escorts the Prince of Rome, Prince Marcus Carprenius to Langkasuka to marry the Princess of China, Princess Meng Li Hua.

Stephen Rahman Hughes

Stephen Rahman Hughes is my favourite character in this movie. He played Merong Mahawangsa and did a very good job. Stephen is of English, Welsh and Malay ancestry. Stephen starred in a few TV Series like; Bad Girls, Doctors and Sky One Dream Team. In 2006, Stephen starred in the Malaysian musical production of Puteri Gunung Ledang. In 2010, he did a shower gel advertisement as a Bollywood image-obsessed actor known as "Abhi Mumtaz'. In 2011 is when he made his breakthrough into the silver screen as the lead actor of this movie, Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa. As Stephen isn't fluent with the Malaysian language, he has to learn his lines phonetically. Aside from that, he is also in a Singaporean TV series, The Kitchen Musical. Stephen does not only act, but also sings. He is in a recently formed male group opera, Teatro, a group of 3 British and 1 American. 

Stephen interest me the most because he played the character, Merong, very well. As Merong, he had to save the Princess of China, which is kidnapped by the pirates to reunite with the Prince of Rome. He portrayed Merong to be a very brave and fearless character. Quite a number of his scenes contained humor. The humor in the character, Merong, suits Stephen's character. According to one of the interviews of him behind the scenes for this movie, he said he had to go through intensive training to build his body to fit this character. Once again, he did an amazing job and had the perfect body to fit the character Merong. I've seen a few of his interviews and I find Stephen a very nice and humble person.


Joanne Chee Siew Kuan