The multi-talented artiste, Namewee (aka Wee Meng Chee) announced on 26th July 2011 that his much-awaited directorial debut film Nasi Lemak 2.0 has been completed. This film is a joint production between media entertainment company Prodigee Media and UB Prodigee Entertainment, which took more than 2-years in planning and six-months to complete (including post-production work).

“I have spent two-years of my life focusing on this film and I’m very glad that it has finally ready for nationwide screening, this film is my gift to my country in conjunction with this coming National Day celebration” says Namewee. “We created this story using our national cuisine ‘NasiLemak’ as a metaphor with the intention of conveying a positive message to our fellow Malaysians; adopting the humor and wit of Namewee’s storytelling style.” says the film executive producer, Fred Chong.

“With only an ambitious plan, we created the film’s multi-cultural characters based on a best-case scenario, where we imagine having the most ideal casts for this 1Malaysia film. I believe it was Namewee’s personality and also the interesting storyline we had that made the difference, because to our surprised, all our first choice artistes agreed to come onboard of this project including Adibah Noor, Dato David Arumugam, Karen Kong, Afdlin Shauki, Kenny &Chee, Reshmonu, Dennis Lau, Nur Fathia, Nadine Ann Thomas, Pete Teo, Ho Yuhang, Dian Sharlin, Felixia Yeap and many more famous celebrities.” said Fred Chong. “Even though the film was shot mostly in mandarin and Cantonese, we also included Malay, English and Tamil languages in our storyline to make this a truly ‘Muhibbah’ film suitable for all Malaysians to enjoy.” says Namewee.

“Initially, I faced some mental blocks trying to fill in the missing pieces of my story, but after knowing that these Malaysian superstars had agreed to support my film, I quickly completed the script after researching into their strong personalities. If I’m not mistaken, this has to be one of the biggest lineup of multi-racial superstars ever assembled for a local movie, making Nasi Lemak 2.0 a truly 1Malaysia project!’ says Namewee.

Due to the controversial issues faced by Namewee last September, the initial plan to complete Nasi Lemak 2.0 for 2010 came to a complete halt when the sponsors and investors decided to pull out from the project. “Not until the Minister from the Prime Minister’s office, Dato Seri Nazri Aziz officially announced Namewee’s innocence in Parliament building at end of last year, we were able to revive the project again in 2011” says Fred Chong. “I presented my film trailer and explained to Dato Seri Nazri the intention of my story, he was very impressed and he gave me full support including an official letter to endorse my film as a 1Malaysia film. I was facing a lot of hurdles from many government authorities, so the endorsement from the Prime Minister’s office helped me in this case.” says Namewee.

Nasi Lemak 2.0 is distributed by GB Primeworks (a subsidiary of Media Prima Group) and will be released in nationwide on 8^th September 2011. It is also proudly supported by prominent brands; Canon, HTC and Tiger as the film’s co-sponsor. “We will be embarking on hectic 12-city nationwide promo tour in September (including shopping malls in Klang Valley, Penang, Malacca, Johore, Sabah and Sarawak) to promote this film, therefore we would not have been able to launch this without the support of our co-sponsors.” said Fred Chong. “I received many emails and messages on my official facebook (with more than 588,000 fans), asking me to go visit their cities, so I’m really looking forward to meeting my fellow Malaysians during this tour” says Namewee.

The Nasi Lemak 2.0 movie campaign also features several merchandises, where fans will be able to support by purchasing the official music soundtrack, cookbook and t-shirt through its official website www.nasilemak2.com (also officially launched today). “We are in the midst of manufacturing these cool merchandises, so hopefully it will be available during our upcoming red-carpet gala premiere around National Day period” says Fred Chong.

“With several negative incidents surrounding our country now, we really hope that this can be seen as a positive note championed by our multi-cultural superstar artistes, to show our love for our country through this ‘national day’ celebration film, so we really hope that more cinemas will support us by showing this film during the September month (Malaysia Day) period and we’re targeting at least 60-cinemas nationwide will be screening this special film” says Namewee.