#18 October 1987

The Big Durian Documentary created on 2003 by Amir Muhammad. The story was about racial riot and it happened in Chow Kit (Kuala Lumpur) on 18 October 1987. The documentary tries to interview and to express people's opinion about this racial riot in Chow Kit on 1987.

What happened on 18 Oct 1987 at Chow Kit?

In 18 Oct 1987, it was a Malaysia's political history one of the darkest days. There had some political persons and a few of newspaper office including Sin Chew Daily had been forced to close during the period of Operasi Lalang.

The night of 1987 October 18, a soldier, Prebet Adam ran amok with an M-16 in the area of Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur. He caused the situation in the tense and rumours of the racial riot. Even though Prebet Adam made situation in the tense and rumours of the racial riot, but it lets Tun Mahathir to regain the initiative in Malaysia.

The Big Durian Documentary

In the film, Amir Muhammad interviewed some of the artists and made them like a civilians instead of an artist such as a Malay woman. When they were interviewing her in the park with any questions and her answer was just “I don’t know, don’t ask me anything”. Although her response liked a proper civilian, we realized that she was just a Malaysia artist when we recall back the film. The purpose that Amir Muhammad invited them to be a civilian was because some of the people maybe felt shy in front of the camera and maybe the director tried to cover some of the parts or answer were not allow appear on the screen. 

At the end, I hope that this kind of situation in the tense will not happen again in my loved country - Malaysia