Indonesian filmmaker Angga Dwimas Sasongko is making a return to the director’s chair with “Queen of Malacca,” a crime-action thriller that melds Southeast Asian mysticism with gritty underworld violence. The project was unveiled at the Cannes market.
Sasongko heads Indonesian studio Visinema. After spending two years focused on leading Visinema’s corporate transformation and shepherding “Jumbo” — Indonesia’s most successful animated film to date — Sasongko is ready to helm what he describes as his most ambitious action project yet.
“It’s time to direct a film that ignites the deepest instincts I have as a storyteller,” Sasongko said. “Now that Visinema’s transformation is well underway and ‘Jumbo’ has exceeded its targets, I’m returning to the director’s chair with something more ambitious: an action film that is visceral, emotional, and rooted in the grit of local stories.”
The film aims to blend traditional Southeast Asian mythology with contemporary crime narratives. “I want to create a world building that’s very routine to Southeast Asian culture, but never been touched before in Southeast Asian cinema,” Sasongko said. “How to combine the dark side of crime and underworld within Malacca Strait… It’s one of the most strategic areas for trading, for geopolitics, but not only on the surface, but also in the underworld.”
The Malacca Strait, a crucial shipping lane between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, serves as both the geographic and thematic center of the film, which will explore its role in human trafficking, drug trade and weapons smuggling.
Sasongko plans to reimagine traditional Malaysian warrior myths for contemporary audiences. He referenced the legendary warriors of the Sultan of Malacca, whose sagas are popular throughout Indonesia and Malaysia. The film will also incorporate elements of Southeast Asian power politics, including the use of shamanic practices and superstitions among political elites.
“People with power tend to use superstitious elements into their power game. They have shamans, they look for prophecy… And it happens in the real power game in politics in Indonesia,” Sasongko said.
As the director behind “Stealing Raden Saleh,” Indonesia’s highest-grossing action film with over 2.3 million admissions, Sasongko brings substantial genre experience to the project. “Queen of Malacca” will be his fifth action feature, following “212 Warrior,” “Ben & Jody,” “Stealing Raden Saleh” and “13 Bombs.”
The film is currently in advanced development with script work and production strategy in progress. Visinema is in talks with potential partners from South Korea and the U.S. to build cross-border alliances for production and global distribution. Principal photography is scheduled to begin in 2026.
Through Visinema, Sasongko has cultivated one of Indonesia’s most progressive creative IP studios. The company has expanded beyond traditional filmmaking into animation, music, digital series, and other immersive storytelling formats.
Visinema’s slate includes a collaboration with South Korean powerhouse CJ Entertainment on “Call Me Dad,” a remake of the Korean hit “Pawn,” and sci-fi animation “Kancil.”
The success of “Jumbo” has emboldened Sasongko and Visinema to take more creative risks. “‘Jumbo’ is a thesis that proves worth to fight for,” Sasongko said. “We can see it not only as an animation, but also as a progressive movement by us to offer new possibilities of storytelling, new possibilities of genre, new possibilities of medium.”
He stressed the importance of content diversity in the Indonesian market: “The success of ‘Jumbo’ gives us a lot of confidence to bring more freshness and bring more progressive content to the audience, especially the Indonesian audience, that is growing very rapidly at this moment.” Sasongko expressed concern about the current dominance of horror films in the domestic market, adding, “If we only rely on one or two genres, we don’t give benefits to the audience. We don’t give possibilities to audience to grow within our own work.”