Disney+ Hotstar has recently released the highly anticipated docuseries, BTS Monuments: Beyond the Star to celebrate and look back on the journey of the world’s biggest boy bands.
The episodic series features never-before-seen interviews, performances and other BTS (behind-the-scenes) moments with the Bangtan Boys – a name given to the collective members of BTS, including RM, Jin, SUGA, j-hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook.
The show has eight episodes dedicated to highlighting the band’s journey in the last 10 years. BTS fans (also known as ARMY) are taken through the highs and lows of making it in the K-Pop industry. Beyond the highly competitive trainee qualifiers and grueling training, the show captures the success of the band as it was catapulted into international fame.
The Bangtan Boys definitely leaves an impression in the series. Through the episodes, viewers embark on a journey through the BTS experience as it becomes a household name. The show also explores the thoughts of each member as they delve more into their doubts and motivations. With unexpected challenges like sudden fame, burnout, and the recent pandemic, one of the core themes centered around perseverance.
Overall, the show does a good job at giving fans an intimate look into the band’s thoughts while putting the spotlight on important milestones. However, those who are generally unfamiliar with the band or K-Pop may find it more difficult to follow along. With mentions of several band-references and references to K-Pop specific events, the docuseries is very much an ode to fans.
You can catch BTS Monuments: Beyond the Star on Disney+ Hotstar. Looking for more show recommendations? Check out our recent article on 10 movies you should not miss out on here.
August has come and gone… and with the strikes happening in the U.S., it can seem like there’s not many things that you can add to your watchlist – whether it’s offline or on one of the growing number of streaming platforms. But, don’t be down in the dumps, we’ve got a rundown of a few shows that should be on your watchlist, if they aren’t already.
If you missed the first season, what have you doing with yourself!? This is arguably one of the best epic high fantasy series on streaming right now. The series is based on a series of 15 books called “The Wheel of Time” and follows a group of young people, an Aes Sedai and her warder as they try to stave off the Dark One.
Source: Amazon Prime Video
Season 2 picks off where Season 1 left off with our main characters scattered to the winds as the end of the world quickly approaches. After the events that happened in Fal Dara, we see Nynaeve and Egwene learning the ways of the Aes Sedai while maneuvering the politics that have seeped into the White Tower. Meanwhile, Moirraine and Lan are in a remote hillside as she learns to navigate the realities of being sealed off from the Source. Her inner turmoil straining the bond between her and Lan. Perrin continues the search for Padan Fain as he seeks revenge for the death Fain has wrought.
While all of this is happening, we are left with the threads from season 1’s finale as new, unknown forces have begun to invade from the ocean. Don’t forget, the Dark One is still out there.
Season 2 kicks off on September 1, 2023 with 3 episodes being released simultaneously on Amazon Prime Video. The season will consist of 8 episodes in total. The series stars Josha Stradowski, Rosamund Pike, Daniel Henney, Zoë Robins, Madeleine Madden, Marcus Rutherford, Dónal Finn as Mat Cauthon, and Ceara Coveney.
Based on the popular manga and anime series, One Piece brings the adventures of Luffy and band of misfit pirates into live action. The series follows Monkey D Luffy as he quests to find the “One Piece” to become king of the pirates. Luffy’s journey begins in the East Blue Sea, driven by a quest to uncover the legendary “One Piece,” the ultimate treasure left behind by the late King of the Pirates, Gol D. Roger. His ambition is to claim the title of Pirate King for himself. To achieve this, Luffy seeks to build his own crew, known as the Straw Hat Pirates. Along the way, they are joined by a diverse group of individuals, each with their own unique talents and quirks.
Their journey is anything but ordinary as they cross paths with fellow pirates, bounty hunters, criminal organizations, and revolutionaries. They also face off against enigmatic scientists, soldiers of the morally ambiguous World Government, and a host of both allies and adversaries. As they navigate the vast seas, they inch closer to realizing their dreams and ambitions.
“One Piece” is a tale of adventure, friendship, and the pursuit of one’s destiny, offering a rich and immersive world that continues to captivate audiences around the globe. But then again… you already knew this… right
The series stars Iñaki Godoy, Mackenyu, Emily Rudd, Jacob Romero and Taz Skylar.
Star Wars fans will undoubtedly already be devouring this series. The new series in the Star Wars franchise follows one of the most popular characters to come from its animated Clone Wars series – Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan.
Source: Disney+ Hotstar
Having forsaken the Jedi order after the events of the Clone Wars and slowly become a figurehead in Rebel movement, Ahsoka finds herself looking into an emerging threat after the fall of the Empire.
The series premiered back in August and stars Rosario Dawson as the titular character.
Disney+ is coming off a pretty good quarter when it comes to subscribers. The streaming service is now the largest of its kind with 152.1 million subscribers worldwide. However, it looks like the House of Mouse is still struggling to make its streaming businesses profitable. Yep – businesses – Disney has more than one streaming service repertoire; Disney+ is its most widely available. Hulu, ESPN+ and Live TV are also part of the catalogue but aren’t widely available. Altogether, the businesses have seen an aggregated USD$1.1 billion in losses.
It would seem that to make the business more profitable, Disney+ will be introducing a Disney+ Premium subscription while the current tier will become an ad-supported one. You read that correct, Disney isn’t introducing a brand new tier, it’s turning its current tier into an ad-supported one. The new ad-free “Premium” tier will be priced at USD$10.99 (MYR48.85), a 37.5% increase in price. It would seem like the ad-supported tier will be screening 15- to 30-second ads for every hour of viewing which can be pretty disruptive especially if you’re watching a movie. The change will be introduced on December 8, 2022.
The change in the subscription structure has, so far, only been confirmed for the United States. Disney hasn’t commented on the change in other regions. In Malaysia, the service is currently available for MYR54.90 for 3 months that’s equivalent to USD$3.09 a month. However, it’s available under its Disney+Hotstar brand which carries a whole other catalogue including local content and licensed content under Hotstar. If the service is to follow the repricing the U.S. is doing, yearly commitment for the service would be MYR301.95 from the current MYR219.60. At which point, it may be cheaper to simply get it as part of a bundle from Astro.
That said, Disney+ isn’t the only service looking at introducing an ad-supported tier. Just recently, Netflix announced that it would be doing the same in a partnership with Microsoft. However, Netflix’s implementation of the ad-supported tier will limit the amount of content accessible to the user in its ad-supported tier. For now, Disney+ seems to not do this. However, we shall wait and see.
Disney+ is coming to Malaysia on June 1, 2021 – that’s TOMORROW – as Disney+ Hotstar. The streaming service has been making waves with the huge subscription uptake in countries that it has already been launched in. The number currently stands at just over 100 million across 59 countries as of March 2021. It’s bound to see an increase with the Malaysian launch just a day away.
The service will bring Disney’s complete catalogue of shows including all of its original animations such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Mulan, Aladdin, Dumbo and more; their live-action remakes including the recently screened Mulan starring Liu Yifei and Jet Li; as well as other Disney favourites including Pirates of the Caribbean. In addition to that, subscribers will be gaining access to the plethora of content available from Marvel Studios including all of the movies in Phase 1, 2 and 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the Star Wars Saga, National Geographic content and Pixar’s library of content.
However, that wasn’t the focus of their recent announcement. Disney+ Hotstar is adamant in showcasing that it isn’t just a platform for international content. In fact, the streaming service will be launching with a pretty packed line up of original content from local studios like PrimeWork Stidios. WAU Animation, Act 2 Pictures, Les’ Copaque Productions, and Red Films. It seems like the House of Mouse was busy stocking its library with new and old Malaysian content while preparing for the big day.
Of note, Disney+ Hotstar will be bringing three Malaysian blockbusters straight to the silver screen via its service. J2: J Retribusi which stars Amelia Henderson, Zul Ariffin and Ashraf Sinclair; Zombitopia starring Shaheizy Sam, Bront Palarae and Sharifah Aman; and Ada Hantu starring Hairul Azreen will be making their Malaysian debuts on Disney+ Hotstar and skipping the theatres.
It’s not just movies making their big debut on the service either, Malaysian series will be premiering on Disney+ Hotstar. Drama series Semanis Senyumanmu starring Aiman Hakim Ridza and Daiyan Trisha and Wifi Sebelah Rumah starring Zul Ariffin and Ruhainies will be premiering exclusively on the platform. That said, the series Single Terlalu Lama starring Ungku Ismail Aziz and Julia Farhana Marin and Kekasih Hati Mr. Bodyguard starring Redza Rosli and Sharifah Rose will be premiering first on the platform up to 15 hours before their live telecast.
Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to content from Disney+ Hotstar. The streaming service will be debuting a slew of original content. One of the more anticipated releases is the upcoming Marvel series Loki which follows Marvel’s God of Mischief as he faces the threat of being erased by the Time Variance Authority after stealing the Tesseract during the events of Avengers: Endgame. Tom Hiddleston will be reprising his role as Loki. The upcoming series joins a stable of growing series taking place in the MCU. In addition, subscribers will be able to catch up with WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier which have already debuted.
Disney+ Hotstar will be launching on June 1, 2021 in Malaysia. It will be available for MYR54.90 for three months. The service will be available to Astro Movies Pack subscribers for an additional MYR5.00 a month. Subscribers will be able to stream on two concurrent devices.
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In this episode of Tech & Tonic, we discuss the growing number of streaming services. Disney+ Hotstar is finally making its way into Malaysia after a long wait. Disney+ Hotstar joins Malaysia’s long list of streaming platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Go, Astro Go, iflix, and a few others.
Is having more streaming services a good thing though? Does it still make sense for you to pay for Cable TV services like Astro in Malaysia, especially with certain channels being removed with the introduction of Disney+ Hotstar? Do we need more streaming platforms at this time? Would Disney+ be better than the rest of the platforms?
We discuss this and more in the Tech & Tonic Podcast.
After months of speculation and years of patience on our end, Disney+ is finally taking its step into Malaysia. How much is it? It will set you back MYR 54.90 for three months and it starts in June 2021. If you are already a customer of Astro, there are also special packaged for the streaming platform.
For the longest time, the dominating force in the on-demand content streaming service in Malaysia was dominated by none other than Netflix. Of course, there were other competitors in Malaysia with less significant market shares like Prime Video, HBO GO, Astro GO, the homegrown iflix, Dim Sum, and even Viu. A handful of these competitors are not even direct competitors as they tend to show more Asian contents than the other platforms.
Netflix’s closest competitors in Malaysia at the current time would be HBO GO and Amazon’s Prime Video. Those two still pale in comparison to Netflix and what Netflix has to offer. This is also mostly due to Netflix’s highly aggressive marketing strategy and a whole slew of Netflix exclusives that has been churning out in the past few years. Netflix exclusives are also accompanied by very compelling licensed titles including ones from Disney’s studios. Those things made Netflix the platform to have if you want an extensive selection in great contents. Plenty of those contents are also Disney contents.
It only makes sense for Disney to get in on the whole streaming platform game. They are the largest entertainment organisation in the world, after all. In that sense, they own the largest collection of exclusively licensed contents in the world currently. If they start a streaming platform, they have the largest collection of exclusive titles in a single platform. That also means more money for Disney and that is why Disney+ was born.
Source: Disney
Disney+ Hotstar is a streaming platform that is also tailored to Malaysia. That also means that you get exclusive viewing to locally produced films on the platform. Titles like Ejen Ali, Upin & Ipin, Alif & Sofia, and J2: Retribusi, Evolusi KL Drift, KL Gangster, Gol & Gincu, and even Zombitopia are all coming to the platform. There are top selections from the rest of the Asian region too with the likes of Ip Man 4, Infernal Affairs, The Legend of Haolan, and Pandian Stores and Vishwaroopam 2 in the mix too.
Of course, when it is Disney, you expect the bigger Disney blockbusters to appear in the platform. You can now watch WandaVision, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, the upcoming Loki, Frozen, Mula, Maleficent, The Lion King, Marvel’s Avengers, and so much more from Disney+ Hotstar. You even have highly acclaimed titles coming on top of the platform like Fresh off the Boat, Criminal Minds, How I Met Your Mother, and even Grey’s Anatomy.
That said, a few of theses familiar titles that you might have seen on Netflix or other streaming platforms will disappear from the other platforms as Disney+ Hotstar becomes available in Malaysia. As per reported too, Sony has signed an exclusive deal with Netflix instead of Disney. In that case, for the time being we can expect Marvel’s Spiderman movies to be available on Netflix first before airing on Disney+ Hotstar.
Disney+ Hotstar starts streaming for Malaysia on the 1st June 2021 onward. Customers can head over to Disney+ Hotstar website for more information and to subscribe to the platform. Disney+ Hotstar will set you back MYR 54.90 every three months and can be viewed on up to 2 displays at a time. Is it worth subscribing to? That is for you to decide, but we are likely subscribing just for WandaVision, The Falcon and Winter Soldier, the upcoming Loki, and the new Star Wars: The Bad Batch series.
Disney+ is coming to Malaysia! Finally, we can watch all the #Marvel series legally. Here is the question though, is it worth subscribing to? Especially with all the services we have already subscribed to. Should we fork out extra money for more contents that we might not even watch?
This is #Disney we are talking about though, they are one of the largest entertainment companies in the world, if not the largest. They are going to have more compelling shows in their catalogue. Is this going to be the case of iflix vs. Netflix again though? Who will emerge the victor in the long run? We don’t know yet. Still we discuss about it and more in Tech & Tonic Podcast Season 2 Episode 6.
