In this review, I will write and analyze about the Malaysian film called Sepet (2005), directed by Yasmin Ahmad and its representation of Asian cinema from the mise-en-scene and cinematography.

Sepet is a drama comedy story of a Chinese boy with a bad background falling in love with a Malay girl with a good background. An unlicensed VCD seller Ah Loong's entire life changed when he meets Orked a student with good results, and from that day on, they will face a number of social and racial problems that stopped them from loving each other. There are multiple elements in this movie that highlight the uniqueness of Asian Cinema that separates it from Hollywood, and most of the aesthetics also speak out the multi-racial culture of Malaysia. Although it is seen as a low budget film, it has accurately mirrored the culture and environment of Malaysian society.

In Asian Cinema, the languages used is very different from Hollywood, in Sepet, languages other than English has surfaced, like Cantonese, Chinese, and Malay. This is because it is the languages used in Malaysian society. One of the other elements of Asian Cinema is the culture, in Malaysia culture, people are more shy to strangers as they are not as open as Western culture, it limits the actions the actors could do, but at the same time tells the audience how they should expect from the actor's behavior. Furthermore, the movie uses the settings and locations that represent Malaysia, there is no need for additional sets because most of the scenes are existing places.

The characters used in the film has multiple races like Malay, Chinese and Indian which is the majority race in Malaysia, the audience of the movie will notice that the characters of the movie are not entirely focused on one race, also there is some cultural difference between the characters. The issue of Malaysia identity in this movie is complicated because, in past Malaysia history, there is the incident 513 which the Japan invade and ruled Malaysia. The Japanese treated the Chinese poorly because of the communist in China and the Malay friendly.

From that on, the ties between Malay and Chinese have become rotten, government policies were set by races, but the Malays feared the Chinese would be replaced the economy because of the relationships from China. The gap between two races has not been treated well but widen decade by decade, additional reasons Chinese would stay away from marrying a Malay is due to the fear of force religion conversion.

To summarize this review, Sepet is a notable movie that separates Malaysian film with other movies made in Asia. It also is one of the Malaysian movies challenged the norm to include cross racial relationships, which includes restrictions and stereotypes from both races.