Nur Kasih

"Nur Kasih" roughly translated as "Glow of Love". For those who are not in Malaysia, it is the drama series that had successfully garnered 3 million viewers (so reported by local newspaper). There are a lot of rave reviews about the drama.

I first caught a glimpse of the drama while attending a function at a cousin’s house. They had the television on but the volume down. I was too far to hear any thing. The cinematography (is it the right term for television drama?) caught my attention. The bits and pieces I saw on that night, made me curious. I wanted to see more.

I think first episode that I watched on television was episode 4. I realized why it caught my eyes. The director made full use of basics photography principles. Rule of third, leading lines, natural framing, and contrasting colours – just to name a few. The location, the background, the lightings, every thing was beautifully composed. At first I only watch the drama because of the beautiful cinematography.

A couple episodes later, I realized that the story line was interesting too. Fully aware I couldn’t commit myself every week, I began to search for the episodes online. At first I could watch them in Youtube via my mobile phone. I was dismayed to find that a certain party had requested the ‘poster’ (is there such word?) to bring down the content from Youtube. I was forced to watch it from the official television website which couldn’t load properly in the mobile phone.

Already hooked on the drama series, I searched high and low for alternatives. I landed on a website. Though the website allows downloading of low resolution copy of the drama, initially I couldn’t download it or view it on my mobile phone. After further online search, I finally found a nifty browser “Skyfire” that enables streaming of the drama. And so, thanks to technology, I was able to watch it when I want, where I want!

Anyway, since there are already a lot of rave reviews about the drama series, there are a few things that need to be improved. In the first episode, the village location was written as Kuala Kangsar, Perak. However, throughout all the episodes, you will see indications that the village is in Selangor (spot “Selangor” behind Adam while he use the public phone in front of his school in episode 4). In other episodes spot the Selangor State flag flying at the village mosque.

The most disturbing and confusing scenes would be the railway station scenes. Most Malaysians would know that they were saying goodbyes at Old KL railway station. A cousin who watch the drama only occasionally, asked, where are they going, they are already in KL!

I understand the director intention to capitalize ‘characteristic’ of the Old KL railway station, but he could have used other station. Ipoh railway station is a good candidate, though I think after the recent upgrading, it lost some of its ‘rustic’ character. Alternatively, he could use one of the small railway stations that still have the ‘small-rural-station’ feel to it. Taiping railway station is one example.

There are other less noticeable and less disturbing ‘bloopers’. Except for the railway station scenes, I could overlook everything else to say this a well crafted drama series!