"Wiedersehen in Malaysia" is a German television film from 2012. The title means "Reunion in Malaysia" obviously and this is where the movie is set in its entirety from beginning to end. This one will have its tenth anniversary next year, so it's not a particularly new film by any means and that makes it even more pathetic that it is shown still on television in the 2020s now. This is an ARD Degeto production and for everybody who only knows a little bit about the German television landscape, this is really where the alarm should go off because Degeto has come up with hundreds of movies, if not thousands, and almost all of them possess terrible quality and thinking of the fact that German citizens are forced (I kid you not) to pay billions for these films being made, for the cast and crew being able to fly to Asia, it is just a gigantic scandal. The ironic thing is that the existence of GEZ is not discussed in Germany. What is discussed is the question if they should once again rise it. Okay, before we get too general, let's move on to this specific film. If you still had any doubts about this being a terrible watch, then the inclusions of director Metzger as well as writers Morgenroth and Wilke should do the trick. I think as bad as Metzger may be, the ones who came up with this abysmal script are even more to blame because story is key as always and these two also did not manage at all to point out each other's mistakes and turn this into a weak instead of a terrible movie. I am not even expecting mediocrity. Anyway, what else have these three worked on? Many Rosamunda Pilcher movies, Um Himmels Willen, many Katie Fforde adaptations, Rote Rosen, Alles was zählt, Verbotene Liebe, Das Traumschiff, Kreuzfahrt ins Glück, Hinter Gittern - Der Frauenknast, In aller Freundschaft. That should be enough. A lot of that also happened after the making of these 1.5 hours here, but that does not change a thing honestly. These three combine bodies of work that make it 100% obvious there was not the slightest bit of a chance for this to become a decent watch.
As for the cast, things look only slightly better. If at all. Lead actor Stephan Luca, who you see on the poster, is almost always a guarantee as well for a film to be stupid romance kitsch that takes itself far more seriously than it has any right to. There's no denying he is handsome and this is what got him all these lead roles I assume, but in terms of talent, he is the epitome of a good actor. The again, why would anybody expect talented actors for films with such terrible writing. Why would they intentionally ruin their careers? The female lead here is Raven Tao. She is tolerable at times, certainly also more on the attractive than on the talented side and the opposite of prolific because this is her second credit of three. Maybe not even a full-time actress. Here she fits in with her Asian background and probably, due to the complete absence of a body of work, she was also not too expensive to hire. Same applies to most of the others I assume. Max Urlacher I am not too sure about and he might actually be the most talented cast member, even if his material is pretty weak as well and he is tied to a chair anyway for one third of the movie. Katja Studt I remember having seen elsewhere and nothing positive I can say about her either. Highly untalented actress and the only thing memorable about her is her last name that almost sounds like the German word for a female horse. I guess this is also where we are supposed to see feminity with her. The only thing that is not memorable in a negative sense I mean because from that perspective she certainly stays in the mind. Giggenbach In aller Freundschaft enough said, Fauziah zero other credits and Lawrence Wong seems to be doing somewhat fine. Haven't seen anything else from his body of work. Leonie Brill is a stunner though. Remember seeing her in one of these many fairytale films and while I can't really comment on her range and versatility (nobody really could have made that script work), at least she physically lights up the screen with her many scenes.
You can see the international title on the poster here on imdb, which is completely different compared to the German original title I mentioned earlier. Nonetheless both titles make no sense connected to the poster because the Asian woman is the future for the protagonist and the past are the two other grown-ups showing up once again and they are not even remotely oncluded on the photo. Terrible design. Maybe not in terms of the graphics, but in terms of the idea and how pictures and text are connected. More amateurism here. There is also an environmental message to this film and that is linked to turtles which I generally support, but this entire film felt like such a cheap scam that I cannot even appreciate that idea. You can literally feel that the filmmakers did not care one bit for the environmental message here with the shoddy approach they gave that story, even if Tao tried her best to come off as responsible, so this aspect is also no reason all to watch this movie. It is as clumsy as everything else if we take a look at the cringeworthy scene in which Tao says there will be no more turtles like these if the beach is sold. And also how she made the bad guys mad by getting all this money to make sure they have to pay even more to purchase the area felt as much for the sake of it as everything else. The general idea here has also so many flaws. That the male protagonist unexpectedly runs into his brother and the brother's wife and the latter is the girl who left him back then for his brother. Of course, we find out that said wife eventually admits she still loves Luca's character and wanted him to fight for her more than he did, so he is partially to blame. Then there is talk about an alleged night in which the two had sex again, which of course causes pain to the Asian protagonist, the one you see on the posters, and the moment her tears rolls were also very cringe. Honestly, the only thing missing to make things even worse could have been a surprise confession that the daughter is actually Luca's child. So yes, this film could have been even worse and this could have happened in other Degeto movies in fact, even if it sounds totally absurd. They would still accept the screenplay despite stuff like that. No responsibility and dedication to realism at all, even if these films are shown on national television.
As for the daughter (Brill), she also added nothing except hanging around with the Asian boy all the time and apparently she likes to be drunk as we find out and she also makes a comment that gets Luca's character on the trail of the main antagonist here. Speaking of the Asian kid, his meeting early on and talk to Luca's character about being German in terms of security measures was very cringeworthy too with how the man reacted there after playing it all cool before that and saying that the boy must teach him something first. Speaking of the crime aspect here, that was the most ridiculous thing ever. Urlacher's character here was incolved in some shady affairs and his job was to be a smuggler here, but he did not bring the right amount of money, so he got kidnapped by the thugs. Or the main thug I should say. That was Gruber (Giggenbach) and comfortably this character was also Luca's character boss, so this is where the circle unrealistically closes. Before the inevitable happy ending and the bad guy being arrested (with no consequences for Urlacher's character apparently or his wife who also knew about all that), we get more absurdity. Luca basically goes off as a one man army and breaks into the bad guy's premises, only because his daughter said the man acted awkwardly. There is talk about police being informed and the German embassy as well, but none of these is ever seen. Oh well, actually police is, namely right at the end when they take the bad guy to the car, but also before that when Luca's character is randomly arrested. Sure thing. Luckily, he has the two women help him and this also shows us that they both (still) deeply care for him. So he gets out of jail to free his brother of course before something terrible happened. The scene with the cane or what it was when he tries to beat down the bad guy's helper was kinda funny like how he does not even feel the pain (like from a Bud Spencer movie), but let's not even talk about everything afterwards, especially now about the Asian woman attacking the bad guy.
As for the romance side, it is extremely cringeworthy too. Take the "first date" (the game too) how she takes him to the house of a rich investor and of course he has to dress up and be happy that she gives him a chance anyway. This is really where the sexism from these movies comes into play. Degeto is always anti-male. Many other examples we have here. The ex-partner may be bad, but the brother is way worse, not only when it comes to being strict towards their daughter. So many other moments during which this film sucked. Take the inclusion of a manslaughter case. Yeah, you don't recognize when a fully drunk fella goes on a dive. I don't even. Also the small moments sucked, like Luca's face expression when he is apparently rejected by the Asian woman was a prime example of bad acting. Besides, with the many local characters here, the dubbing could not have been any worse really. The drama with the passports and, indirectly connected, Studt's character not loving her man as much as he loves her felt also like poorly-acted filler material and nothing else. No matter whcih perspective you take here, this film can only get the lowest rating possible from me. Highly embarrassing. Soundtrack is over the top and bad as alaways with Degeto. Films like this make me glad that they are not producing as many films anymore in 2020/2021 as they did almost a decade ago. This is a movie you must avoid at all costs. Highly not recommended. Travel instead.
As for the cast, things look only slightly better. If at all. Lead actor Stephan Luca, who you see on the poster, is almost always a guarantee as well for a film to be stupid romance kitsch that takes itself far more seriously than it has any right to. There's no denying he is handsome and this is what got him all these lead roles I assume, but in terms of talent, he is the epitome of a good actor. The again, why would anybody expect talented actors for films with such terrible writing. Why would they intentionally ruin their careers? The female lead here is Raven Tao. She is tolerable at times, certainly also more on the attractive than on the talented side and the opposite of prolific because this is her second credit of three. Maybe not even a full-time actress. Here she fits in with her Asian background and probably, due to the complete absence of a body of work, she was also not too expensive to hire. Same applies to most of the others I assume. Max Urlacher I am not too sure about and he might actually be the most talented cast member, even if his material is pretty weak as well and he is tied to a chair anyway for one third of the movie. Katja Studt I remember having seen elsewhere and nothing positive I can say about her either. Highly untalented actress and the only thing memorable about her is her last name that almost sounds like the German word for a female horse. I guess this is also where we are supposed to see feminity with her. The only thing that is not memorable in a negative sense I mean because from that perspective she certainly stays in the mind. Giggenbach In aller Freundschaft enough said, Fauziah zero other credits and Lawrence Wong seems to be doing somewhat fine. Haven't seen anything else from his body of work. Leonie Brill is a stunner though. Remember seeing her in one of these many fairytale films and while I can't really comment on her range and versatility (nobody really could have made that script work), at least she physically lights up the screen with her many scenes.
You can see the international title on the poster here on imdb, which is completely different compared to the German original title I mentioned earlier. Nonetheless both titles make no sense connected to the poster because the Asian woman is the future for the protagonist and the past are the two other grown-ups showing up once again and they are not even remotely oncluded on the photo. Terrible design. Maybe not in terms of the graphics, but in terms of the idea and how pictures and text are connected. More amateurism here. There is also an environmental message to this film and that is linked to turtles which I generally support, but this entire film felt like such a cheap scam that I cannot even appreciate that idea. You can literally feel that the filmmakers did not care one bit for the environmental message here with the shoddy approach they gave that story, even if Tao tried her best to come off as responsible, so this aspect is also no reason all to watch this movie. It is as clumsy as everything else if we take a look at the cringeworthy scene in which Tao says there will be no more turtles like these if the beach is sold. And also how she made the bad guys mad by getting all this money to make sure they have to pay even more to purchase the area felt as much for the sake of it as everything else. The general idea here has also so many flaws. That the male protagonist unexpectedly runs into his brother and the brother's wife and the latter is the girl who left him back then for his brother. Of course, we find out that said wife eventually admits she still loves Luca's character and wanted him to fight for her more than he did, so he is partially to blame. Then there is talk about an alleged night in which the two had sex again, which of course causes pain to the Asian protagonist, the one you see on the posters, and the moment her tears rolls were also very cringe. Honestly, the only thing missing to make things even worse could have been a surprise confession that the daughter is actually Luca's child. So yes, this film could have been even worse and this could have happened in other Degeto movies in fact, even if it sounds totally absurd. They would still accept the screenplay despite stuff like that. No responsibility and dedication to realism at all, even if these films are shown on national television.
As for the daughter (Brill), she also added nothing except hanging around with the Asian boy all the time and apparently she likes to be drunk as we find out and she also makes a comment that gets Luca's character on the trail of the main antagonist here. Speaking of the Asian kid, his meeting early on and talk to Luca's character about being German in terms of security measures was very cringeworthy too with how the man reacted there after playing it all cool before that and saying that the boy must teach him something first. Speaking of the crime aspect here, that was the most ridiculous thing ever. Urlacher's character here was incolved in some shady affairs and his job was to be a smuggler here, but he did not bring the right amount of money, so he got kidnapped by the thugs. Or the main thug I should say. That was Gruber (Giggenbach) and comfortably this character was also Luca's character boss, so this is where the circle unrealistically closes. Before the inevitable happy ending and the bad guy being arrested (with no consequences for Urlacher's character apparently or his wife who also knew about all that), we get more absurdity. Luca basically goes off as a one man army and breaks into the bad guy's premises, only because his daughter said the man acted awkwardly. There is talk about police being informed and the German embassy as well, but none of these is ever seen. Oh well, actually police is, namely right at the end when they take the bad guy to the car, but also before that when Luca's character is randomly arrested. Sure thing. Luckily, he has the two women help him and this also shows us that they both (still) deeply care for him. So he gets out of jail to free his brother of course before something terrible happened. The scene with the cane or what it was when he tries to beat down the bad guy's helper was kinda funny like how he does not even feel the pain (like from a Bud Spencer movie), but let's not even talk about everything afterwards, especially now about the Asian woman attacking the bad guy.
As for the romance side, it is extremely cringeworthy too. Take the "first date" (the game too) how she takes him to the house of a rich investor and of course he has to dress up and be happy that she gives him a chance anyway. This is really where the sexism from these movies comes into play. Degeto is always anti-male. Many other examples we have here. The ex-partner may be bad, but the brother is way worse, not only when it comes to being strict towards their daughter. So many other moments during which this film sucked. Take the inclusion of a manslaughter case. Yeah, you don't recognize when a fully drunk fella goes on a dive. I don't even. Also the small moments sucked, like Luca's face expression when he is apparently rejected by the Asian woman was a prime example of bad acting. Besides, with the many local characters here, the dubbing could not have been any worse really. The drama with the passports and, indirectly connected, Studt's character not loving her man as much as he loves her felt also like poorly-acted filler material and nothing else. No matter whcih perspective you take here, this film can only get the lowest rating possible from me. Highly embarrassing. Soundtrack is over the top and bad as alaways with Degeto. Films like this make me glad that they are not producing as many films anymore in 2020/2021 as they did almost a decade ago. This is a movie you must avoid at all costs. Highly not recommended. Travel instead.
