Bunohan: Return to Murder (2012)

Interesting facts

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Bunohan is a 2011 Malaysian Malay-language action drama film, written and directed by Dain Iskandar Said. The film features actors Faizal Hussein, Zahiril Adzim and Pekin Ibrahim in leading roles. Bunohan is the second film to be directed by Dain Said. Bunohan had its world premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival where it was praised for its solid, visceral storytelling and arresting photography.

Production

According to the official production notes released by film company Apparat, the film was originally given the title Bunga Lalang (Malay: weed flower), referring to character Adil's ring name. It eventually earned its final title of Bunohan as Dain Said encounters the name of the village – situated near the town of Pengkalan Kubor on Kelantan's border with Thailand – during his research, reacting as if he has never heard of the word before (notab…

Dain wrote the screenplay in the span of the 2 years, from 2008 to 2009. Some of the more intricate details of in the setting and narrative of this film, were driven by his childhood memories of growing up in a kampung near said real-life place, as he explains in an interview with magazine FilmMaker:

I grew up with my sisters and parents, near this place called Kampung Bunohan, or Murder or Killing Village, which is the setting of our film, up north close to the border of Southern Thailand, where my father was a cop. It was at the end of the railway line, a two-horse town. The border meant nothing, people just cross it like they were crossing a road. It still happens today actually.

Apparat initially had difficulties in finding adequate resources for film funding and production had to be delayed for a year while waiting for the loan to be processed. The National Film Development Corporation approved a loan after Apparat successfully pitched their idea to the former. The project went into execution after another bank approved a loan that provided special schemes for film financing.

Swamp and tidal movement were the biggest challenges in picking the natural elements for the background, considering that the filming took place in locations across the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia where the region is prone to floods and expected monsoon seasons. Dain gave credit to his team who had gone through various challenges to produce beautiful cinematography for the entire film.

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