Star Wars Takes to the Screens of Wayang Kulit

This may look like a traditional wayang kulit show but there are some differences.

Visual effects and sound effects have been added to enhance the experience for the audience.

Animator Chuo Yuan Ping has teamed up with renowned shadow play performer Muhammad Dain Othman in this modern take on the puppet show.

“I want to promote this traditional art to the younger generations some like it but some feel that this is old and outdate, so in order to get their attention, is to do something that they know.”

Something they know is the Star wars movie series...

“The two main characters are Sangkala Vader and Perantau Langkit. The good and the bad, the force and the darkside. The character that they are familiar with is different. So new meets old, traditional meets sci-fi.”

The aim of the project is to revive a traditional culture not to completely change it.

Renowned perform Muhammad Dain says the tradition allows for innovation as long as key elements are there.

“If you want to perform an outside story like Star Wars. The master puppeteer must be there, the screen must be there and the percussion must be there.”

As animator, Chuo Yuan Ping wants to enhance the old version of wayang kulit by adding sound effect, visual effect, and some new ways of puppets.

One of the changes is the character music says Muhammad Dain.

“When it comes to star wars they want to create a specific music for darth vada. They created the music using the percussion used in traditional shadow play. If they insert in another kind of instrument, that is not shadow play anymore.”

The show has been more than year in the making and Chuo says there have been many challenges along the way.

“Nobody has done this before, its like how should we do it? Can we do that? We had a lot of challenges here and there from puppet cutting, to visual affect until song making, so we actually have constant challenges.”

His aim is to hold a one hour show based on the fourth movie of the Star Wars franchise.

The hope is that this traditional art form will be preserved through this fusion.