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