Restored Asian Films

Deep in the jungle, where tigers, snakes and elephants are at home, U Pho Thwa owns a sawmill. With his delightful granddaughter Myint Myint he lives a little further off in a comfortable villa. One day, Myint Myint takes her horse for a ride, accompanied by a houseboy. She has a riding accident and is saved from drowning in the river by a good-looking young man from Rangoon. All too soon, Myint Myint and Chit Shwe have to part again: he is on his way back to the city. But the situation at home isn’t good: his rich father has lost his heart to a woman who is two-timing him. Chit Shwe is full of despair about his family’s loose morals. Furthermore, he is in a financial crisis. Since, in the circumstances, he doesn’t want to ask his father for a loan, he cooks up a plan with a shady friend, an alcoholic. There has just been a murder in town, the search warrant for the murderer promises 5000 Kyat as a reward. Chit Shwe decides to pretend that he is the murderer, in order to get the reward later. Momentarily, a wild group of determined policemen are chasing the innocent man. Chit Shwe flees from his pursuers – like an early James Bond – using every available mode of transportation. He finally escapes – in a hot air ballon. The winds play God and, after having withstood a few thunderstorms, he finally lands close to the sawmill. Except that he has ended up in the encampment of the teakwood thieves. Even though they receive him graciously, the well-born young man is not keen to join the group whose members are clad in tigerskin jackets. They let him go and show him the road back to the city which, as it happens, leads past the sawmill. Chit Shwe and Myint Myint are happy to see each other again, because they have loved each other since their first meeting in the river. And yet, she doesn’t trust him, fearing that he belongs to the group of thieves who want to liquidate her and her grandfather. Very soon, he has the opportunity to prove his loyalty. The teakwood thieves invade the sawmill on elephants, trampling down buildings in a spectacular attack. There is much fighting and shooting; even fearless Myint Myint (wearing a small, white flower in her hair) takes up arms. In the end they defeat the robbers, but grandpa has lost his life in the struggle. No, she isn’t all alone in the world, says Chit Shwe consolingly, he is there for her, after all. And so finally, nothing stands in the way of a happy end. A jungle patrol, who had arrived at the sawmill shortly after the attack, tells Chit Shwe about his father’s search for him after his bad stepmother has finally run away with her lover. There’s more: his father has promised a reward to anyone who has information about his son’s whereabouts.
And so Myint Myint and Chit Shwe make their way to the city and, after a hundred adventures in the jungle arrive in a very urban Yangon. The father and a writer friend are already expecting the couple for tea in a beautifully appointed garden, a pinscher, decorated with a bow, provides the entertainment. Chit Shwe’s father is very proud of his self-willed son, on whom the hero in the novel Mya Ganaing will be based.

[http://www.memoryfilmfestival.org/mya-ganaing/]