Lat The Kampung Boy Is Going To Be A Live-Action Movie!

But we're not talking about an animated version like the 26-episode series aired in 1999. It is going to be a live-action adaptation of the popular graphic novel!

As Malaysians, you should know about Lat by now. But if this is the first time you heard about Kampung Boy for some unbelievable and incomprehensible reason, you should go and live in a cave look it up.

Kampung Boy, or The Kampung Boy or Lat, the Kampung Boy, is a graphic novel by Malaysian cartoonist Datuk Mohammad Nor Khalid (more fondly known as Lat) about a young boy's experience growing up in the rural area of Perak in the 1950s.

First published in 1979, Lat's story has become so successful that it has even been translated into 12 languages including Tamil, French, German, Korean, Japanese, and was even sold overseas.

Following Lat's commercial and critical success, many people in the industry approached him to adapt the cartoon into film. But he declined most of them because he got really tired talking about Kampung Boy.

Until a French film director came along.

The director once made a film about the life of Vietnamese children in the 1950s, the same era portrayed in Lat's story, as reported by Utusan Malaysia.

Lat didn't think it would be possible to work with the director, but when he expressed his interest to bring the story to life, he had to say yes.

He has also seen the director's past since the 1990s when he was living in London, United Kingdom at the time.

Lat revealed that their next step will be to discuss the filming location and casting.