Projek High Council: This Malaysian Series Reminds Us of Our Asrama School Days
If you’ve been to a boarding school before, you’ll have experienced the thrills and spills of asrama life. Late-night lepak sessions at secluded areas, juvenile adventures; simpler times, for sure. However, for many Malaysians, the word ‘asrama’ will remind them of its negative aspects like bullying for example.
Astro’s latest gem, Projek High Council showcases the best and mostly the worst parts of boarding schools in the most teeth-gritting ways. Projek High Council is part of the Projek universe, similar to Projek Anchor SPM. Ultimately, it belongs to the Astro Originals family, a line of premium quality series that includes the much-raved One Cent Thief, Murder By Moonlight, Kudeta and Histeria.
Created and directed by Anwari Ashraf, the series explores the story of the long-lost Ismet brothers in their efforts to topple the hierarchy at Kudrat. Two popular Hero Remaja champions, Mierul Aiman and Nadhir Nasar, take on the roles of the brothers alongside other stars Daiyan Trisha, Amir Ahnaf, Fadhli Masoot, Azhar Sulaiman and more.
The series is based on an actual underground gang called High Council in the famous STAR school in Ipoh, who once terrorised their fellow peers back in the 90s.
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Projek High Council is now one of the most talked about local show on social media. If they’re not talking about how good-looking Mierul Aiman and Nadhir Nasar are, they’d be thirsting on Amir Ahnaf yelling the word ‘Kapla’ with a mischievous grin. Frankly, the biggest draw of the story is the nostalgia - as the series reminded most viewers of their younger school days.
Anwari and his writer brought a lot of boarding school easter eggs and subjects into the series. Firstly, the bullying. From the painful halt squats to the trashing of lockers, you can tell the writing team did their research quite well. Not forgetting the ratchet classroom fistfights with no shirts on!
The most horrifying form of bullying is, of course, the psychological one. Anwari brilliantly portrayed this in a harrowing manner; bullying a new student into submission, seeing them burst and allowing others to boycott them for self-defence. The amount of mental gymnastics seen in the series, even Farah Ann cannot compete.
However, we’d like to also note that Projek High Council isn’t promoting bullying or violence but rather simply documenting the tragedies that happened and still happening at many boarding schools across the country. Such a form of documentation is key in raising awareness of bullying. Gone are the days of sweeping bully cases under the rug because with millions of engagements on social media, Anwari and Co. set the rug on fire and let the awareness move on its own - helping adults educate their younger relatives on the harms of bullying.