Cathay-Keris Films

The movie adaptation based on the legend of Raden May Ayu. It follows the original tale rather closely, though a few variations of the legend do exist. The essence of each of the variations is more or less the same: Radin Mas Ayu is the baby daughter of Pangeran (brother of the Sultan of Java) and a court dancer; she is forced to go on exile to Temasek with his father after the Sultan disagrees with her parents' marriage and burns their house down, killing her mother. Radin Mas Ayu grows up to be a pious and filial daughter, but is despised out of jealousy by her stepmother. She eventually sacrifices herself as she shields her father from a murderous attack.

Mat is contented working as a rag-and-bone man. He is offered a paper bag that he thinks is just filled with shards of glass. It turns out to contain jewels worth millions of dollars that he unknowingly gives away to his friend Hamid. The owner sends his henchmen on a wild goose chase to hunt down the bag. This bewilders Mat as he is forced to be on the run. He puts on various disguises and encounters a slew of obstacles and colourful characters along the way.

Zaleha, a beautiful young woman gets betrothed to Zaki, her staunch and religious childhood sweetheart in an arranged marriage that seems to be a perfect union since the pair have been infatuated with one another. However, family friend Untung (played by Mat Sentol) desires to take Zaleha as his second wife and conspires with the nosy matchmaker Mak Andam to concoct a scandalous love affair that Zaleha had before marriage. Zaki chances upon the fabricated proof on the wedding night and believes Zaleha to be tainted. He self-righteously insults his newly wedded wife and distances away from her, much to the confusion and annoyance of their families, as Zaki is suspected to be impotent.

A young merchant learns the art of transforming himself into a tiger, on condition of him adhering to some rules. Using his skills, he takes revenge on those who had tortured and attempted to harm him. However, as he breaks the rules he had promised to observe, he pays the ultimate price.

The festivities of Mior Sebatang comes to a halt when a group of cruel bandits led by the powerful Megat Hitam, robs and wipes out the village in a massacre. They take the village head’s daughter, Melor as hostage. The royal palace receives news of the tragedy and Prince Kelana defiantly leaves the palace with his aide to rescue his kidnapped fiancée. Hoping to protect her son, the queen devises a secret plan enlisting the help of her confidante Murai, who possesses mystical powers, to pursue and destroy the bandits ahead of Kelana. With the support of fellow warrior Kancil (played by Mat Sentol), Murai infiltrates the bandits’ hideout. Meanwhile, in his journey to gather firepower, Kelana and his aide discovers the world of other skilled pugilists and vigilantes.

Following the events in Mat Bond, Mat arrives in the kingdom of Darul Funfair and finds himself entangled in a sinister conspiracy of a corrupt minister attempting to poison the Sultan of Darul Funfair and preventing the crown prince from ascending the throne. The crown prince (a doppelganger of Mat) who is disinterested in being a royal, escapes and Mat is mistaken for the prince by the royal guards and the Sultan. In typical Mat fashion, he basks in the chaos and confusion of the mixed identities situation and brings the evildoers on a wild goose chase in search of a missing crown jewel.

Qais and Laila fall in love with each other when they are young, but when they grow up Laila's father doesn't allow them to be together. Qais becomes obsessed with her, and his tribe Banu 'Amir and the community gives him the epithet of “Majnun” ("crazy", literally "possessed by jinn"). When Qais asked for Laila’s hand in marriage, her father refused because it would be a scandal for her to marry someone considered mentally unbalanced. Soon after, Laila was married to another noble and rich merchant. When Qais heard of her marriage, he fled the tribal camp and began wandering the surrounding desert.

Manis and her fisherman father receive a guest named Suleiman at their humble kampung house. He is well-liked by them both and becomes a frequent visitor who helps out with the daily chores. Unbeknownst to Manis, the young man is in fact a prince-in-disguise. So a romance between a royal and a commoner blossoms, as the couple exchange teasing pantuns at the next opportunity - while gathering wood, or while tidying up the rumah ibu. All is bliss when Manis agrees to marry Suleiman in secret even after finding out his true identity. Separation of the loving pair beckons when the prince receives news from the palace and returns to his ailing father, who at his death bed agrees to a royal intermarriage between his son and a princess from a neighbouring monarchy. A family reconciliation and cursed tragedy ensue.

Mat has always dreamt of becoming a secret agent since he was young. After accidentally finding and consuming an elixir that grants indestructibility, he gets his wish when he is hired to retrieve a briefcase that contains these elixir pills. With a motley crew on his tail, Mat realises that leading a spy’s life like James Bond is harder than he imagined.

For selfish and petty gains, the village head enlists the help of the medicine man to conjure a toyol (child spirit) for him to own. However, the medicine man constantly fails in his concoctions. They hear rumours of Mat possessing the ability to conjure toyols and decide to take advantage of him, recruiting Mat as the medicine man’s assistant to do the hard work. Meanwhile, the medicine man’s wife who is frustrated with her husband’s failures, leaves home to reclaim a dark heritage of her own. As Mat seeks the secret ingredient for the concoction, he experiences hysterical encounters with the world of black magic, witches, talking animals and dancing skeletons.

Mat, Wahid and Badak are three happy-go-lucky friends. All unemployed, the men struggled to make ends meet. One stormy night, a lost girl seeking shelter wanders into their home and disrupts the otherwise peaceful lives of the bachelors. Despite their inability to understand each other, the trio develops a bond with the girl in their attempt to sell her away for money. In a side plot, housewife Lela awakes to find her husband and daughter missing from the bed and frantically heads out in search of answers.

The film tells of Pak Pandir, a rich man who uses a strange approach to his daily life. She raised her four children using a strict disciplinary approach such as having to get up early in the morning, to sleep early at night, and not to mix with women as well as the common people in the village. However, without her knowledge, her children were already hanging out with the people in her village. The problem begins when her children compete against each other to win the heart of a girl who is in fact a dumb girl who is an individual who desperately wants her daughter to marry rich and wealthy people. Unfortunately, without the knowledge of his children Mr Pandir himself managed to get the girl to be his wife.

”Tiga suku”, which literally translates into “three quarters”, is a Malay term used in the context of describing crazy, whacky or oddball-like behaviour; of being mentally “not quite there”. And “Mat Tiga Suku” is indeed an eccentric film that seeks to subvert our usual sense of logic, decorum and good taste. In this film, Mat Sentul is a poor and helpless man, lives in a house that talks to him, and daydreams about wealth and pretty princesses. It is an episodic adventure that follows the slapstick antics of Mat Sentul who, among many pranks, moves the bus-stop at his will, halts an aeroplane that does not give way, and pretends to be an office worker, a barber and a doctor.