Why would a Latin teacher need to know Malay?

Anyone out there speak Malay?  Perhaps you are conversant in the Jawi script of Arabic which was used to transliterate it?

No.  Really.

I was looking through some IMDB lists, looking for good movies about Rome (y'know, in case there's one I've haven't seen) and a movie from Malaysia pops up on the radar?  Clash of Empires is (according to the blurb on IMDB), "... tells the tale of the journey of Merong Mahawangsa escorting a Roman prince to wed a beautiful Chinese princess during the 2nd century."  HUH?!

Ok, I got to check this out.  Dude's name was Merong Mahawangsa, and (according to Wikipedia anyway) a legendary hero who went on to found a dynasty on the Malay Peninsula...  And he was supposedly descended from Alexander the Great (of course)...  But ROME?!

Neither the Wikipedia entry on Merong Mahawangsa nor the annals he apparently appears in are very well sourced...  If at all.  But, as I tell my students, look at the References, Further Reading and External Links sections at the bottom.  Lo! A link! A palpable link to a translation published in 1849.  Yikes.  Scholarship--to say nothing of culture--has come a long way (we hope) in 160 years. 

I guess I'll have to find out.  ;)