Penang - References in Popular Culture

References in Popular Culture

• Penang was the shooting location for a number of movies, most notably:

1. Indochine (France, 1992) featuring Catherine Deneuve and Vincent Perez.
2. Beyond Rangoon (USA/UK, 1995).
3. Paradise Road (USA/Australia – 1997) starring Glenn Close and Frances McDormand.
4. Anna and the King (USA, 1999) featuring Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-fat.
5. The Touch (Hong Kong, 2002) featuring Michelle Yeoh.
6. Lust, Caution (Taiwan, 2007) directed by Ang Lee.
7. Sun Yat-sen biography film Road to Dawn (China, 2007) featuring Winston Chao and Angelica Lee.
8. The Blue Mansion (Singapore, 2010) featuring Patrick Teoh
9. Ice Kacang Puppy Love (Malaysia, 2010)featuring Ah Niu and Angelica Lee.
10. The Amazing Race 16 Ep 8

• Penang was featured in or alluded to in books such as:

1. The Phantom Ship by Frederick Marryat (1792–1848).
2. Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815–1882).
3. A Retrospect by Protestant Christian missionary J. Hudson Taylor (1832–1905), which documented how he founded the China Inland Mission (rename in 1964 Overseas Missionary Fellowship and now OMF International).
4. The Penang Pirate by John Conroy Hutcheson (1840–1897).
5. An Outcast of the Islands by Joseph Conrad (1857–1924).
6. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930).
7. Around the World in Seventy-Two Days by American woman journalist Nellie Bly (birth name Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, 1864–1922). It is a true account of her journey in 1889 to see if she could beat the fictional journey in Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days.
8. The Man Who Could Work Miracles by H. G. Wells (1866–1946).
9. Threshold of Hell by Albert J. Rupp, a crew member of the USS Grenadier SS210 submarine who were captured by Japanese in April 1941 along with 75 others, recounted in the book the dark days when he was interned at Convent Light Street in Penang.
10. The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng set in World War II Penang, was nominated for 2007 Man Booker Prize.
11. Interlok by Abdullah Hussain. Book 2 was set in Simpang Empat, Penang, Seberang Perai and Book 3 was set in Pitt Street (now Jalan Mesjid Kapitan Kling). This controversial book cronicles three Malayan individuals of Malay, Hockien Chinese and Tamil Indian origins in pre-war Penang.

• Penang was featured in or alluded to in musicals such as:

1. P. Ramlee The Musical, staged in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore by ENFINITI Vision Media.
2. The Secret Life Of Nora (2011), an upcoming musical set in 1960s Penang. The musical tells the tale of a spy masquerading as a cabaret singer on a reconnaissance mission to acquire intelligence on a ring involved in human trafficking.