Malaysia launches Hollywood-style film studio

Studio executives said it will take seven years before the $790 million E-Village project is completed with eight studios and post-production facilities, landscaped grounds for outdoor shooting and a training academy.

Because of its digital animation capability, the project is regarded as part of the country’s ambitious high-tech zone, the Multi-Media Super Corridor.

Only one computer animation studio and a sound stage, said to be Asia’s largest, have been finished at the E-village. But some industry sources are not impressed.

"What I’ve seen here is nothing compared to what they have in the US," a local entertainment producer said.

But government officials say they are not competing with Hollywood or India’s Bollywood.

"Our rates will be much cheaper than studios in the US and Australia," Ibrahim Ghaffar, the E-village’s chief executive.

But industry sources said a bureaucracy that can delay the shooting of simple outdoor scenes for weeks needs to be streamlined if Kuala Lumpur is to have any hope of rivalling Hong Kong or Bombay as movie-making centres.

Tolerance of film makers’ views — instead of criticism when they project the country in a less than admirable light — would also help, they said.

"We may be all excited about creating a new Tinseltown here but the reality is not all that easy," said Raj Bhatt, a film producer aiming to attract Indian movie-makers.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad fumed last year when the Hollywood thriller Entrapment, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, showed pictures of Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers superimposed against images of a slum.

The towers, the world’s tallest buildings, are surrounded by beautiful gardens, not a slum.

The film was not banned but officials said they were considering tightening up conditions for film-makers.

One Indian film-maker told Reuters he was recently asked to wait two weeks to shoot a simple scene in a forest in a park. He complained to Mahathir’s office. The result: Instant approval.

"The problem is we shouldn’t be knocking on the PM’s door. Things should happen on their own," he said.