The Yusof Legacy: How Yusof Haslam, Shamsul Yusof and Syafiq Yusof are Dominating

For better or for worse, Mat Kilau has been the talk of the town for about 2 weeks since its release and in that span of time, the movie garnered more than RM50 million in ticket sales.

Netizens claimed that Malaysians have always wanted historical-themed movies, as the successes of iconic films like Embun, Bukit Kepong and Puteri Gunung Ledang are solid cases in proving that fact. As much as the demand was there anyway, Mat Kilau’s unique recipe for success lies in the air tangan of its creator - Shamsul Yusof.

Shamsul is a complex character in the cinemascape. Often seen as assertive and sometimes loud, Shamsul initially started out as an actor in his father’s Maria Mariana II before stealing more limelight in Evolusi KL Drift. But it wasn’t until KL Gangster that Shamsul gained almost cult-like status among his audiences.

His famous ‘Lu Abang Long ka, lu Ayahanda ka, ini KL gua pegang’ quote was on the lips of every Crows Zero-loving Malaysian boy who finally got to see a Malaysian-equivalent on the big screen. Shamsul’s impact on Malaysian pop culture was both effective and dangerous to a certain extent, but no one could deny that his work was nothing short of contagious.

But Shamsul owes that to his father, the legendary Dato’ Yusof Haslam. Unlike Shamsul, Yusof Haslam is the son of a lorry driver, who lived together with seven of his siblings in a house at a squatter settlement. Initially, a bus conductor, his love for the big screen came after watching a number of Hollywood and Bollywood films. He then landed a role as an extra in Laksamana Do Re Mi as the guard for Minister Fasola (yes, that’s him!).

Dato’ Yusof made it big with Gerak Khas, a cop-themed series we grew up watching. AC Mizal? Abby Abadi? Norman Hakim? All got their big break from the show. The series ran from 1999 up until 2021, spanning 20 seasons and over a thousand episodes together with three blockbuster movies.

There’s a strong sense of storytelling continuity between Yusof’s Gerak Khas and Shamsul’s KL Gangster. These are arguably two of the most successful franchises in the history of the country and coincidentally, bound by blood; the Yusof Storytelling DNA. The same DNA can be seen in Shamsul’s Munafik, Desolasi and most recently, Mat Kilau.

The DNA expands to another member of the family, Syafiq Yusof, who has a number of hits under his belt. Considerably new in the scene in comparison to his brother and his father, Syafiq offers a different kind of flair despite tapping onto a similar storytelling core.

Syafiq was given the opportunity to produce a spin-off of his brother’s KL Gangster title, exploring the comical character of Abang Long Fadil. It was obvious that Fadil was written solely to be the comic relief in between the seriousness of KL Gangster’s conflicts, but Syafiq somehow managed to still humanize the character into becoming a fan favorite among Malaysian audiences.

As a result, the second instalment of Abang Long Fadil earned RM18 million, which is 3 times KL Gangster’s sales. Due to that, Abang Long Fadil will be getting a third movie scheduled to be released sometime in September this year.

Like them or hate them, the Yusof Storytelling DNA’s biggest strength is simply knowing what the audience wants to see and serving them on the silver screen - and in this case, their audiences yearn for bigger-than-life stories that are relatable to their own hopes, fears and aspirations.