This September, Terbang brings a Malaysian rally story to cinemas. In a fortuitous stroke of timing, the film comes out shortly before Formula 1’s unexpected return to Malaysia this year.
Four-time FIA Asia Pacific Rally Champion and 11-time Malaysian national rally champion Karamjit Singh serves as the real-life inspiration for the film. But director Chiu Keng Guan, best known for Ola Bola (2016), isn’t making a straight-up biopic.
Irfan Zaini plays Ajeet, a fictional rally driver who has spent five years away from the motorsport after a tragic accident.
When family circumstances pull him back into competition, Ajeet is paired with a new co-driver. Lee Wai Kitt (Jack Tan) is young, brash and not especially interested in making his return easy.
The rest of the Petronas EON Racing Team (PERT) includes Zizan Razak’s mechanically gifted Imran, Nam Ron as team leader Rahim and Shweta Sekhon as Lisa, Ajeet’s wife and a racer in remission.
As Ajeet and Kitt learn to work together, PERT climbs from obscurity towards international recognition. Plenty happens before anyone turns on the ignition, though. Between team politics, old guilt, and the pressure of representing Malaysia abroad, Ajeet must manage a difficult partnership while confronting whether he can still trust himself behind the wheel.
Terbang has the familiar bones of an underdog sports film, but its identity is unmistakably Malaysian. It draws inspiration from one of the country’s most decorated rally drivers, while PERT carries local motorsport history through Petronas and Proton. The movie also lands in cinemas the day after Malaysia Day—that timing is about as subtle as a rally car at full throttle.
And for anyone who thinks watching rallying in a stationary cinema seat sounds too tame, it's also getting a 4DX release. That means moving seats and immersive effects, including wind, water and even scent, will join in on the high-speed action. In other words, when Ajeet’s car gets thrown around, there’s a fair chance you will too. So, you may want to hold your popcorn and drink steady.
A look back at some great films from the world of racing.
Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a once-promising F1 driver whose career was derailed by a crash in the '90s. 30 years later, former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) calls him back to rescue struggling team APXGP, where rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) isn't so thrilled about sharing the garage.
Made in collaboration with Formula 1 and produced by seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, the film drops its fictional team amongst the real grid during the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Pitt broods, Idris bristles, and the cars do what they do best... go racing.
Few racing films have a premise this improbable: get very good at PlayStation, then try the real thing. Gran Turismo dramatises Jann Mardenborough’s leap from gamer to professional driver after winning GT Academy in 2011.
Archie Madekwe plays Jann, with David Harbour as the gruff former racer tasked with training him and Orlando Bloom as the executive backing the experiment. The setup could easily feel like a two-hour advert for the gaming console. Instead, the movie finds its tension in the moments where virtual skill meets real-life skill.
Sometimes, the best way to settle a corporate grudge is at 300km/h. Ford v Ferrari follows car designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale). The pair are recruited to build a car that can beat Ferrari at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The racing is loud, muscular and beautifully shot, but some of the fiercest battles happen nowhere near the circuit. Shelby and Miles must also contend with Ford executives who keep inserting themselves into the operation. Building a faster car turns out to be easier than getting everyone in the boardroom to agree.
Technically, Logan Lucky is a heist film. The theft just happens during NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600, so it earns its place here. Steven Soderbergh sends brothers Jimmy (Channing Tatum) and Clyde Logan (Adam Driver) after the money moving through Charlotte Motor Speedway. Daniel Craig pops up as an aptly named explosives expert, Joe Bang.
Racing becomes the perfect cover for an elaborate robbery, but that’s part of the charm. The production even shot at the Atlanta Motor Speedway during actual NASCAR events.
James Hunt versus Niki Lauda. Chris Hemsworth versus Daniel Brühl. Hedonism versus precision. Ron Howard’s Rush revisits F1’s extraordinary 1976 season, when McLaren’s Hunt and Ferrari’s Lauda fought for the drivers’ title through one of the sport’s most dramatic years.
Reality supplies more than enough drama: Lauda’s near-fatal Nürburgring crash, his rapid return to racing, and a title fight that reaches its conclusion in rain-soaked Fuji. The film works because the rivalry never becomes a simple hero-and-villain story.
Critics found Speed Racer a case of sensory overload in 2008. Nearly two decades later, that excess seems like the whole point. The Wachowskis turn the Japanese manga and anime into a live-action neon rush. Emile Hirsch plays Speed, a gifted driver with the Mach 5 at his disposal and a corrupt racing empire standing in his way.
Tracks twist into impossible shapes, and the laws of physics are apparently optional. It’s proudly artificial in a genre that often sells realism.
Before the franchise developed a casual relationship with physics, The Fast and the Furious kept its muscle cars relatively grounded. Rob Cohen’s original movie sends undercover cop Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) into Los Angeles street-racing culture, where he meets Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). Modified cars and illegal races complicate the job almost immediately.
The ingredients that would define the series are already there: nitrous oxide, loyalty, bravado and increasingly serious discussions about family. Twenty-five years later, it’s almost quaint to revisit a Fast film where the biggest problems can still be solved without a submarine, a tank or a trip into space.
Tom Cruise had already conquered the skies in Top Gun (1986). Naturally, NASCAR came next. In Days of Thunder, he plays Cole Trickle, a talented but unpolished driver. Veteran crew chief Harry Hogge (Robert Duvall) is tasked with turning his raw talent into someone capable of winning races. Famously, Cruise met his now ex-wife Nicole Kidman on the set of the film.
The formula is pure late-80s and early-90s blockbuster: ego, romance, and plenty of motivational speeches. Loud, glossy and occasionally ridiculous, this movie knows exactly when to floor it.
Esquire Malaysia
©2026, Heart Media Pte Ltd
