EXCLUSIVE: The trailer for Mike Wiluan’s historical monster film, Orang Ikan, has been unveiled, ahead of its world premiere in the Tokyo International Film Festival’s Gala section.
Set in 1942 in the Pacific, the film follows a Japanese soldier named Saito and a British prisoner-of-war named Bronson, who are stranded on a deserted island, hunted by a deadly creature known as the “Orang Ikan.”
Orang Ikan is directed and written by Mike Wiluan, who also helmed Buffalo Boys, Losmen Melati and co-produced Crazy Rich Asians.
The film stars actor-musician Dean Fujioka (Fullmetal Alchemist) and Callum Woodhouse (All Creatures Great and Small).
Sailing across the sea during World War Two, a Japanese ship is transporting prisoners of war to occupied territories for slave labour. Among those onboard the ship is Saito, a traitor to the Japanese who is being sent back to Japan to be sentenced to death.
Saito is shackled to a British POW, Bronson. When the ship is torpedoed by Allied submarines, Saito and Bronson are thrown overboard and wash ashore a deserted island. There, Bronson and Saito are hunted by the Orang Ikan.
Orang Ikan is produced by Freddie Yeo (Westworld, Crazy Rich Asians), Tan Fong Cheng (Ramen Shop) and Fumie Suzuki Lancaster (Gensan Punch). Eric Khoo, who recently presented Spirit World as the Busan International Film Festival’s closing film, is also part of the film’s producing team.
The film will have its European premiere at the Trieste Science + Fiction Festival in the Asteroid Competition and its Southeast Asian premiere at the Singapore International Film Festival.
“Orang Ikan is a creature horror that draws its inspiration from the early monster films such as Jack Arnold’s 1954 Creature from the Black Lagoon combined with a popular Malay Folklore and actual reports of sightings by Japanese occupying forces in East Indonesia during the war,” said writer-director Wiluan.
“Orang Ikan is an Asian interpretation of the creature theme set during the tragic real life occurrences of WW2. Aside from the horror, the film accentuates the theme of brotherhood and humanity against devastating reality of survival. This particular theme was inspired by John Boorman’s 1968 classic Hell in the Pacific.”
