THE exploits of Ejim, the masked Sabahan warrior, have been so popular with Malaysians that his screen debut, Tombiruo, is now the second best-selling film of the year, after Abang Long Fadil 2 smashed the box office with RM18 million.
Astro Shaw vice-president and head Najwa Abu Bakar said it had collected RM8 million at the box office since it opened on Oct 12.
“We co-produced both Tombiruo and Abang Long Fadil 2. The success of the two films reflected strong support for the company’s films throughout the year,” she told the New Straits Times yesterday.
Najwa also said the success of Tombiruo, which starred Zul Ariffin as Ejim, and Farid Kamil, Datuk M. Nasir and Faizal Hussein, showed that Malaysian audiences enjoyed stories that celebrated cultural diversity and the spirit of Bangsa Malaysia.
“Most of the cast were from Peninsular Malaysia, and they worked hard to master the Sabah-Malay dialect to play the state’s natives,” she said.
Najwa said films that celebrated cultural diversity were one of the country’s selling points, and Astro Shaw planned to make more of them in future.
“We’d like to thank novelist Ramlee Awang Murshid for creating such an exciting, original story. He gave his full support to the film.”
Tombiruo tells the story of orphaned Kadazan-Dusun boy Ejim, who grows into a fearless and mighty warrior.
He protects Sabah’s rainforests from a greedy developer who wants to build a hydro-electric dam that threatens the farms of the indigenous people who live in the interior division.