OLABOLA

Summary
Road to Moscow 1980 was perhaps the best opportunity for Malaysian football team to
put the country on world map. It was the era where Malaysia, despite being a relatively poor
country, was blessed with so many talented football heroes that the mighty South Korea
wished their country had those gifted players.
But thanks to politics, the Government of Malaysia joined the United States-led boycott
against the Soviet Union for the invasion of Afghanistan. If only Malaysia stood neutral and
decided that politics and sports should not be mixed. But that’s fine because there will
always be another Olympics Games every 4-years.
After Mahathir Mohamad took over as the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia, he
promoted industrialization, privatesation and other plans to enrich the country. Sadly, along
with booming economy and prosperity, he also promoted corruption and racism, which
ultimately spread its tentacles to sports and destroyed the once national football glory.
 To get a flashback of how Malaysians live together harmoniously before Mahathir
regime demolished it, you must go watch “Ola Bola”. Even if you couldn’t afford the RM8
promotional ticket for a morning show, you must borrow money to watch it. Of course, Ola
Bola was not “based on” 1980 national team true story. But the film was “inspired” by its
true event, with some minor twists here and there.
Ola Bola is not merely about the once multi-racial and multi-cultural Malaysians live
happily without calling others names, but also how they cheered under one Stadium
Merdeka’s roof for their national footballers playing for the glory of the country. Here’re at
least 10 things you can learn from Ola Bola and what had gone wrong since then, so that
hopefully it could inspire and make Malaysian football great again.Local film director, 43-
year-old Chiu Keng Guan, was literally unknown prior to 2010’s “Woohoo” which netted
RM4.2 million. The film, focussing on Chinese culture and family values set a new record
for Chinese Malaysian films, something unthinkable previously where Hong Kong films
used to dominate the local Chinese moviegoers.
 The Malaysian national football team today is blessed with nice jersey, branded boots,
good monthly salary, fat perks and bonus, and whatnot. They can afford big car and
luxury home. Still, their skills are miles away from past players who were too poor to
afford such luxuries but possessed magnificent skills and determinations. The local team
has been rebranded as “Harimau Malaysia” (Malaysia Tiger) from “Harimau Malaya”.
Such rebranding will do very little to boost the tumbling standard. If the likes of defence
tag-team “Tauke” Soh Chin Aun-Santokh Singh, “Spiderman” goalkeeper Arumugam, and
Asia best player “SuperMokh” Mokhtar Dahari could play today, Malaysia can qualify for
Olympics even if the team is called “Pussy Malaya”. Declan Hill, the Canadian journalist
and academic who is also an expert on match fixing and wrote the bestseller “The Fix:
Soccer and Organized Crime” has said the following about Malaysian football – “If there
was a gold medal for football match fixing, Malaysia would win it.” Malaysian football
has been about “match fixing” since 1994 and hasn’t stopped ever since .In 1994 alone, 21
players and coaches were sacked, 58 players suspended and 126 players questioned over
corruption. After watching Ola Bola, PM Najib’s own brother, Nazir Razak, openly
declared corruption has harmed the state of Malaysian football and, along with racism,
eroded nation-building efforts.
 CULTURE SENSITIVITY
1. It features a multi-racial cast
The main cast in Ola Bola consists of newcomers Muhd Luqman Hafidz, Chee Jun Cherng or JC Chee and
Saran Kumar Manokaran. Chee plays the captain of the football team while Luqman is the striker and Saran
stars as the goalkeeper.
Bront Palarae takes on the role as Rahman, a sports commentator. YouTube sensation Marianne Tan plays
Marianne, an Astro producer looking to bring the story on the Harimau Malaya football team to life. The
Journey’s Lee Sai Peng makes a special appearance as a security guard at the stadium.
2. Shah Rukh Khan serves as an unlikely inspiration for one of the actors
Luqman shared that he was nervous prior to auditioning for his role.
“I studied acting by watching a lot of Shah Rukh Khan movies. I realised that he expressed himself by
doing a lot of movements with his eyebrows. So I tried that during my audition. Eventually, Chiu told me to
stop moving my eyebrows. I learned that I just have to be myself,” Luqman said.
Chee almost didn’t get cast for his role.
“The first time I went for the audition, I didn’t meet Chiu and they cast me for something else,” Chee
remembered.
“The next day, I was asked to come back again for another audition. Chiu wasn’t there as well. Finally, the
third time I came back for a casting on the field, Chiu saw me and asked me to play some football. I was
nervous because I haven’t played football in 15 years!”
3. A fun set
A massive, fully-functioning funfair serves as one of the backdrops for the movie. Chiu
said planning for the set took months.
“We built it in two weeks at a location in Kuala Lumpur. We shot there for four days and
then we had to tear everything down again. It was a really beautiful set.”
4. Chiu told Bront he was too old for Ola Bola
“I stalked Chiu. I’ve always wanted to act in his movies,” Bront said. “But I thought my
opportunities were limited because Chiu has so far only done movies in Chinese. At one
point, I thought I should learn how to speak Mandarin or Cantonese just to get a shot.”
He dropped a huge hint when he met Chiu at an event in Kuala Lumpur.
“So, he told me he is doing Ola Bola and I immediately told him that I play football too!
But then Chiu said ‘Ya, but you old already.’”
A week later, Bront got a call from Chiu for the role of Rahman.
5. The movie’s budget is a closely-guarded secret
Ola Bola began production in April this year and filming was completed in 55 days.
The team shot at various locations, including Selangor, Perak, Penang, Johor and
Sabah.
Astro Shaw also enlisted the expertise of a visual effects team from Argentina, an
aerial cinematography unit from Australia and the services of notable Taiwanese
director of photography Chin Ting Chang (his recent work was Taiwanese box office
hit, Kano).
So how much did this cost Astro Shaw?
Astro chief operating officer Henry Tan who signed off on the budget said he will not
reveal the amount.
“It’s a secret.”
THANK
YOU