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U-Wei Haji Saari

U-Wei Haji Saari

Directing

Biography

Zuhir bin Hj Saari or also known as U-Wei Haji Saari is a Malaysian film director. He first gained the international attention with his film The Arsonist (more known by its Malay name Kaki Bakar), the first Malaysian film to enter the Cannes Film Festival in 1995. He began his career as a director for television dramas until 1996, when he made his film debut with the highly controversial Perempuan, Isteri dan..., which won him the Best Director award at the 11th Malaysia Film Festival. U-Wei produced a period film titled Hanyut(2014), as a co-production between countries Indonesia, Malaysia, and Australia. The film is based on Joseph Conrad's novel titled Almayer's Folly, which tells about Almayer, a Dutch trader struggling to survive in Malaya with a Malay community at the turn of 19th century. In2022, he was elected to be the chief jury for the Moscow International Film Festival for the documenatry film category.

Known For

Saloma
N/A

The story tells the legendary life of a singer and actress named Saloma. Starting from her lifeas a childhood, the separation of his parents, the pursuit of his dreams and the glorious romance in the twists and turns of her life.

Saloma

2014
Mountain of Gold
6.7

The story of Almayer, a Dutch trader struggling to survive in Malaysia at the turn of the 19th Century. His dream of finding a mythical gold mountain is challenged by his scheming wife, the colonial authorities, the political machinations of the local chief and Arab traders, and his daughter's love for a freedom-fighting Malay prince.

Mountain of Gold

2016
The Arsonist
7.0

The Arsonist involves the struggles of an undocumented immigrant family and a boy's coming-of-age. The son Kesuma must forge his own identity against the intimidating presence of his father Kakang, a man proud of his Javanese heritage and well aware of the social inequalities that allow his exploitation. Kakang counteracts by torching the property of those who slight him, leaving Kesuma simultaneously proud, fearful and ashamed. A clash of wills is all but inevitable. The film climaxes in a poignant conflagration, literal and metaphorical.

The Arsonist

2001
Perempuan, Isteri & .....?
3.0

Zaleha is about to get married to Amir but elopes to southern Thailand to marry someone else instead. The enraged Amir tracks the couple down, kills the groom and sells Zaleha to a pimp. Six months later, Amir brings her back. She tricks him into marrying her. But the six months Zaleha spent as a prostitute have changed her, and she now wants revenge.

Perempuan, Isteri & .....?

1993
Black Widow Wajah Ayu
N/A

Mas Ayu is a modern woman of the 90s: independent, career-minded and attractive. Except at night, when strange dreams of spiders haunt her sleep and one by one, her male friends begin to die. She then starts to believe that she is spiritually linked to spiders and as a result, cannot help but destroy her lovers.

Black Widow Wajah Ayu

1994
Jogho
10.0

Mamat is a native of Kelantan, Malaysia, but he had left Malaysia many years earlier to join his brother Lazim in South Thailand in order to continue making his living as a trainer of fighting bulls (a Jogho). The practice had been outlawed in Malaysia but continued in Thailand. Mamat lives with his wife and three daughters, three divorcees and one who has not yet married, but he has sent his only son to boarding school in Kelantan. Mamat and Lazim are the leaders in a small village that depends mostly on the money won from gambling in bullfights for its sustenance. The story begins when Lazim is killed by Isa at the bullfighting arena.

Jogho

1999
My Beautiful Rambutan Tree in Tanjung Rambutan
1.0

Atan and Tina are brother and sister. They live surrounded by love in a comfortable house. They play and fight as siblings often do and their parents have no qualms about leaving them alone for an evening while they attend a wedding feast. Tonight, Tina pushes Atan to the breaking point - taking advantage of him as she tends to do too often. Atan's reactions will have disastrous consequences.

My Beautiful Rambutan Tree in Tanjung Rambutan

2006
Buai Laju-Laju
5.0

Zaiton seduces a drifter named Amran into murdering her elderly husband, Ibrahim, to get his money and land.

Buai Laju-Laju

2004