Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I can be considered involved in the production of this movie. If you listen closely to the music of the movie, you will find the strings sound are real, not some cheap MIDI sound like most movies from Malaysia are using. I'm one of the violinists in there. Anyway, I am right now studying in New York, I recorded the original score right before I came here. I long to watch this movie since I walked out from the studio. So I asked my mom to send me the VCD of this movie. After finally watching this movie, I was quite happy about the seriousness of the production in a Malaysian film. However, I have never liked to watch Malaysian movies (dominated by Malay language films), because of its slow and meaningless pace. It is sad to say that this hasn't changed a bit in PGL, which I think is the greatest pity. (Even though this movie is directed by a Chinese!!) The movie could be shortened to 2 hours --- if not one and a half --- if the hyper-slow parts were being changed into a somewhat reasonable pace. But overall, I would like to say that I'm happy to see Malaysians try to make this movie a jump start (if it is) for the oh-so-rotten Malay movie scene. Like the another review, I feel the same that some elements like action (I don't like to use the word violence) could be enhanced, it could be better. Those elements are hanging in the middle of nowhere in this film. In fact, I think this issue might be caused by the strict censorship system (if there is a "system") in Malaysia. If we Malaysians want to push the film industry further to the world, PLEASE, the censorship board should reconsider the poor censorship system average that flows from time to time and, PLEASE, give filmmakers a bigger space in creativity. More budget and more money doesn't promise better movies!! Artistic quality is the most most crucial element in making a great movie!!

I just saw Puteri Gunung Ledang. I think it's fantastic. It carried on the Malay cinematic tradition... by the very slow subtle shots, I think. And whhaaatever the critics were saying, I do think that the less Freudian expressions of affection were nice. Ah, I'm proud of these filmmakers. +++ Additional Comments: If you found Peter Jackson's the Lord of the Rings completely ridiculous for it's lack of subtlety, this 5 million dollar movie might help you get over the I'm-really-sick-of-mtv feeling. Otherwise PGL might put you to sleep.This movie is based on classical prose, like Beowulf. So don't expect a 20th century fantasy script either. I also thought that it was nice, how they got all the Buddhist/Hindu, Islamic and animistic etc. cultural details and mythological elements into the movie. The fight scenes were very simple, but quite nice. I hate to be a Malaysian yes-man on this, but they were NICE and simple. And realistic. The martial art form used in the movie, is Silat, which is indigenous to the Malay Peninsula and its surrounding islands (present day Indonesia and Malaysia). The sword is called a kris.

Saw this during the Stockholm Film Festival and it was stated this was Malaysias biggest film budgetwise ever. As such, it is an artistic trainwreck. Those interested in romance and scenery will receive ample doses of scenes with incredibly long, drawn-out, pompous dialogue. This all fails to raise even an eyebrow. Sorry, no points for costumes.Those interested in action will get two short and silly displays of either "Silat" (No, no novelty points) or a painful Crouching Tiger-inspired swordfight with pyrotechnics.Best wishes to the Malaysian film industry, hoping they will try an original concept or at least a decent screenplay next time.

Watching this movie with the greatest expectations of not being disappointed is usually the priority of watching any Malaysian movie. Similar can be said to other Malaysian movies like Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam and Seri Dewi Malam. But the outcome of Puteri Gunung Ledang (PGL) is extremely good, if not beyond the expectations that is for a Malaysian Film.M. Nasir has finally set the record straight, and the bar for playing Hang Tuah. I can no longer see anyone else play the coveted role of a Malay hero than he can. His portrayal of the righteous hero is played so well that most people that have watched him almost believed that he is Hang Tuah.Tiara Jaquelina played the role of Gusti Putri quite well. Her portrayal of a Majapahit Hindu royalty although not really as good as Nasir's portrayal of Hang Tuah is still notable. Some critics would call her a stick on screen but is that what royalties do? Look at the portrayal Queen Elizabeth I, or Lady Jane Seymour of England. They are as much as a stick as Gusti Putri was. Nothing more can be said about her.Christine Hakim was in my own personal view played the most prominent character in the life of Gusti Putri although her appearance in the movie was only for the first 15 minutes of the movie. She made Gustri Putri sound more Malaysian than Indonesian which in turn strengthens her character. Unfortunately her character was ended early which was most unfortunate.Skipping the other characters and side-winding to the aspects of direction of the movie I find that it is very well orchestrated by Teong Hin Saw. He made PGL so beautiful directed that you could not believe it is made by a Malaysian. He was, no, is the perfect choice for the helm of PGL.For the bad part of the movie. Effects for PGL is almost overwhelming that you can see that most of the effects can be seen as, well, fake. Except for the fight scene (SPOILER WARNING!!!) of Gusti Adipati & Hang Tuah, all other effects for the movie is, OK.What is most striking about the movie is the usage of variable camera angles that is almost not used or very badly used in other Malaysian movies. The usage of the classic Malay language and Java scripts is a great plus since it it drives the movie-goers to listen carefully to the spoken word. It is simply awe inspiring.Overall, PGL is worthy of an international release. This could be the landmark and a beginning for more and better Malaysian movies IF and ONLY IF the Malaysian directors and producers are willing to experiment, research and spend lots of money like our Hollywood counterparts do.