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Fifty Years After Ran Muthu Duwa

Exactly 50 years ago (August 10, 1962) on a week like the same we were able to witness the initial theatrical release of Ran Muthu Duwa (Island of Treasure), the first full-length Sinhala colour feature film made in Sri Lanka.

Ran Muthu Duwa was a landmark in the history of the Lankan cinema, which at the time was only 15 years old (having started in 1947). It not only introduced colour to the Lankan movies, but also showed for the first time the underwater wonders of the seas around Ceylon, which had barely begun to be explored.


Gamini Fonseka

Joe Abeywickrama

W D Amaradeva

It was also a commercial success: seen by more than a million people on its first release during 1962-63 - a tenth of the island’s then population. But the cultural influence of the film went well beyond the box office. It starred in the leading roles talented young actors who would soon become big names in Lanka’s film industry, especially Gamini Fonseka and Joe Abeywickrama. It also launched or catapulted the careers of a number of other creative or technical professionals.

Today’s Wiz Quiz opens with a few questions that recalls this trail-blazing movie.

1. Ran Muthu Duwa was written and directed by Mike Wilson, an Englishman who had arrived in Ceylon with Arthur C Clarke in the mid 1950s and settled down on the island. Wilson was a multi-talented person - a diver, photographer, writer and filmmaker. Ran Muthu Duwa was his first feature film, but he had already made a name for himself by writing, filming and directing the country’s first underwater documentary film in 1958. What was its title?

2. Ran Muthu Duwa provided a welcome departure from formulaic Sinhala feature films, and included elements of the discovery of underwater treasure, ancient legends, human treachery and romance. The movie was produced by an artiste who was talented as a dancer, actor and theatre/cinema producer. He acted as an astrologer and stilt walker in Rekawa (Line of Destiny) by Lester James Peries, considered to be a landmark and turning point in the Lankan cinema. He produced Ran Muthu Duwa and a few later films through Serendib Productions. Who was he?

3. As film historian Richard Boyle has noted, Mike Wilson’s contribution to the Sinhala film industry extended beyond his own directorial efforts, for he also actively encouraged other aspiring directors to make movies under the banner of his company, Serendib Productions. One of them, who started as assistant director in Ran Muthu Duwa, went on to become a prominent figure in the industry, directing his own films. Who was this person? (He provided Sinhala dialogue for the film as its director was not proficient in the language)?

4. The man who edited Ran Muthu Duwa was one of the most technically accomplished film and television (TV) professionals in the country, and has been described as the finest editor in the first six decades of the Lankan cinema. In all, he edited 25 feature films, nine of which he also directed, between 1956 and 1979. Ran Muthu Duwa was the third feature film he edited. Who was he?

5. It was in Ran Muthu Duwa that music maestro W D Amaradeva made his debut as a music director for a feature film.

The film’s songs became very popular and have sustained their appeal for half a century. One song, Galana gangaki jeevithe (life is like a flowing river), sung by Nanda Malini and Narada Disasekera, earned its playback singers the award for the best film song of 1962 at the inaugural Sarasaviya Film Awards Festival. Who wrote the lyrics of this well loved song?

6. Ran Muthu Duwa’s cast included Gamini Fonseka, Joe Abeywickrama, Jeevarani Kurukulasooriya, Austin Abeysekera, Thilakasiri Fernando, Shane Gunaratne and Vincent Waas. The villain (Renga) in the movie, who famously fought an underwater battle with the hero’s character (played by Gamini Fonseka), was not a typical film actor. In fact, he was a boxer turned diver who was part of the diving company that Mike Wilson and Arthur C Clarke were operating. Who played the villain in Ran Muthu Duwa and declined to pursue a career in acting even after he became popular with his single appearance?

7. The cinematic story of ‘Ran Muthu Duwa’ was preceded - and inspired - by the serendipitous discovery of an old shipwreck off the southern coast of Sri Lanka by Mike Wilson, Arthur C Clarke, Rodney Jonklaas and their diving associates. This wreck was later determined as a Muslim trader ship that had sunk in 1703 while sailing the legendary Spice Route carrying thousands of freshly minted silver (Indian) Rupee coins. The wreck was located at sea 13km off the Yala National Park, and close to a British-built lighthouse on an offshore outcropping called by which name (give either English or local name)?


Ran Muthu Duwa (Island of Treasure) - 1962

8. According to the preliminary results of Sri Lanka’s 2011/12 census, released by the Department of Census and Statistics, the country’s total population was 20,277,597 on the counting date of March 20, 2012. This was the first time in 30 years that a census covered the whole island. Two districts were found to have more than two million people living in them. One is Colombo District. Which is the other?

9. At the previous census in 2001, Sri Lanka’s population density stood at 300 persons per square km. According to the preliminary results of the latest 2011/12 census, what is the population density of Sri Lanka now?

10. Which 19th century British poet wrote a famous poem titled Timbuctoo, in which we find these lines:

Is the rumor of thy Timbuctoo

A dream as frail as that of ancient Time?

11. Rodney King was a construction worker in the United States (US). On the night of March 3, 1991, he was beaten harshly by Los Angeles police officers after a high-speed chase. A resident videotaped the beating from his apartment balcony nearby, and later gave the tape to TV stations. Its broadcast sparked three days of riots in Los Angeles, but also raised awareness on police brutality, racism and other social inequalities in the US. Who filmed this incident in one of the earliest examples of citizen journalism?

12. London 2012 Olympic football games were held at six venues across England and Scotland. Among them was the Old Trafford, one of the most famous football grounds in the world. Also known as the ‘Theatre of Dreams’, with a capacity of 75,811, it is home to which famous football club?

13. A European prince competed in the bobsled event at every Winter Olympics from Calgary 1988 to Salt Lake City 2002. He reportedly refused any special treatment during his Olympic stints, living in the same basic quarters as all other athletes. His grandfather (father of his mother) had won both the single and double sculls at the 1920 Games, while his uncle also competed in four Olympics. Who is this Olympian royal?

14. In 1937, a young Anglo-Australian planter with socialist leanings was clamouring for better living conditions for the island’s plantation workers, who at the time lacked basic housing, sanitation, healthcare and education. He joined the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP). When the then British Governor of Ceylon, Sir Reginald Stubbs, sought to deport him, he went into hiding and the LSSP started a campaign to defend him.

He made a dramatic appearance at that year’s LSSP May Day (Labour Day) rally, and later won his case in the courts and the deportation order was quashed. The Governor was isolated and the incident aligned almost the entire State Council against the colonial government. Who was this foreigner whose name is now part of social justice and socialist history of Sri Lanka?

15. In the semi finals of the 1992 World Cup Cricket in Australia, England were playing South Africa. The latter team was chasing a target of 252 and required 22 runs from 13 balls when rain interrupted and stopped play. Once the match resumed, the ‘best scoring overs’ method was used to devise the revised target which turned out to be 21 runs from one ball leading to an anticlimactic end to an otherwise exciting encounter. Which mathematical model was devised later by two English statisticians to calculate revised targets when matches are interrupted, in order to avoid fiascos like that?


Last week’s answers

1. Carl Theodore van Geyzel (1902 - 1971)
2. Auckland, New Zealand
3. Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas
4. R (Ranatunge) Karunananda
5. Montreal 1976
6. Kalika Pathirana
7. Dr V R Schokman
8. V A Sugathadasa
9. Niluka Karunaratne
10. Flyweight, Middleweight, and Lightweight
11. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter
12. Greater Himalayan Region (including the Tibetan Plateau)
13. Year 1953
14. W Somerset Maugham
15. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880 - 1960)

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