Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 31, 2012

Terang Boelan is a 1937 film from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Written by Saeroen, directed by Albert Balink, and starring Rd Mochtar, Roekiah and E. T. Effendi, the film follows two lovers who elope after one is nearly forced to marry an opium smuggler. Shot in the Indies and Singapore and partially inspired by the 1936 Hollywood film The Jungle Princess, Terang Boelan was aimed at native audiences and included kroncong music and several actors from Balink's previous work, Pareh (1936). It was a commercial success in both the Indies and abroad (under the title Full Moon), earning 200,000 Straits dollars in British Malaya. This success revived the faltering domestic film industry and inspired films aimed at Malay audiences in Malaya, creating a formula of songs, beautiful scenery and romance that was followed for decades afterwards. Modern critical reception of the film, which has been lost since at least the 1970s, has generally been positive. The Indonesian film historian Misbach Yusa Biran described it as a turning point in the history of Indonesian cinema for its catalytic effect on the industry's growth. (Full article...)

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