Deadline shared the official trailer for Orang Ikan, a historical monster thriller set in 1942.
Helmed by Indonesian director, Mike Wiluan (Buffalo Boys), the film stars Dean Fujioka (Fullmetal Alchemist) and Callum Woodhouse (All Creatures Great and Small) as a Japanese soldier and a British prisoner who must fight for survival against a deadly monster.
The synopsis of the film reads:
May, 1942. WWII rages across a world divided.
A Japanese Hell Ship transports prisoners of war to occupied territories for slave labor. Onboard the ship is Saito, a traitor to the Japanese who is being sent back to the motherland to be sentenced to death.
As further punishment, Saito is shackled to another POW, a British soldier named Bronson who holds nothing but hatred for Saito because of his Japanese nationality.
When the Hell Ship is torpedoed by Allied submarines, Saito and Bronson are thrown overboard and wash ashore on a deserted island. But they are not alone. Bronson and Saito are hunted by a monstrous creature – the Orang Ikan – who will stop at nothing until both men are dead.
Bronson and Saito must put aside their hatred for one another to survive the island and kill the creature before it kills them first.
“Orang Ikan is a creature horror that draws its inspiration from the early monster films such as Jack Arnold’s 1954 Creature from the Black Lagoon combined with a popular Malay Folklore and actual reports of sightings by Japanese occupying forces in East Indonesia during the war,” said writer-director Mike Wiluan on the inspiration of the film. “Orang Ikan is an Asian interpretation of the creature theme set during the tragic real-life occurrences of WW2. Aside from the horror, the film accentuates the theme of brotherhood and humanity against devastating reality of survival. This particular theme was inspired by John Boorman’s 1968 classic Hell in the Pacific.”
Orang Ikan will premiere in Europe at the Trieste Science + Fiction Festival as a part of the Asteroid Competition. The film will have its Southeast Asian premiere at the Singapore International Film Festival.
Watch the trailer for Orang Ikan.