Arizal

Indonesian action cinema specialist Arizal was born on January 11, 1943 in Airmolek, Riau, Indonesia. His parents Ibriham Sidi Mangkuto and Matayam bt. M. Yasin were of Minangkabau descent. Following graduation from high school, Arizal went on to study at both the Faculty of Economics at the University of Indonesia and the West Coast Institute of Management & Technology in Perth, Australia. He began his career in the entertainment industry as a caricaturist for the magazine Selecta. Arizal subsequently went on to join the editorial staff for the magazines Panorama and Mayapada. He started his film career as an artistic assistant for Walt Disney cartoons at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, California. Arizal directed his first movie in 1974 and directed over fifty movies altogether. He displayed a definite knack for wild over-the-top action fare. Moreover, his film High School Serenade (1979) was a considerable box office hit -- it was the third most viewed Indonesian film in Jakarta in 1979, with 162,050 in ticket sales -- and has been widely hailed as one of the top 25 best Indonesian films of all time. Arizal died at age 71 on May 18, 2014 in Jakarta, Indonesia.