Beware the orang ikan.
The Singapore-Indonesia-Japan-UK co-production of Orang Ikan is making its rounds on the international festival circuit, director Mike Wiluan spoke to Deadline about the upcoming create feature.
“I’m a big fan of creature art and this idea of the fish man, or orang ikan came about,” said director Mike Wiluan. “This mythological creature existed in Malay mythology but it hasn’t really been explored. However, there were many stories of sightings by fishermen of these humanoid sea creatures, cropping up time and time again for over 100 years.”
The official synopsis of the film reads “Set in the Pacific, 1942. A Japanese soldier and a British prisoner of war are stranded on a deserted island, hunted by a deadly creature. Two mortal enemies must come together to survive the unknown.”
“When I researched more into the orang ikan, even up till the 1940s, for example, in the Kai islands in eastern Indonesia, there was a group of soldiers that had sightings of this half man, half fish creature. When they went to investigate, villagers told them that there was indeed such a type of creature out there. They documented this although no pictures exist. The way these stories perpetuated through time made us very curious,” added Wiluan.
Stay tuned to Horror News Network for more on Orang Ikan.
