988's Tiger Comes and Comes is a 2022 Lunar New Year short film from Malaysia that transforms post-pandemic longing into a warm, humorous branded narrative
ARCHIVE988 Bets on Tiger Year Optimism to Reconnect With Malaysian Audiences
Tiger Comes and Comes is a branded Chinese Lunar New Year short film produced by Malaysian Chinese-language media brand 988 and released on 15 December 2021 ahead of the 2022 Year of the Tiger, using warm and humorous storytelling to express the cultural sentiment that hardship will give way to better times, with the campaign sponsored by Ajinomoto (M) Berhad.
The campaign's Chinese title, 《虎进甘来》, is the creative engine beneath the entire production. The title engineers a deliberate Cantonese pun on the four-character idiom 苦尽甘来, replacing the character for hardship — 苦 — with 虎, the word for tiger, so that the phrase simultaneously evokes the Year of the Tiger and the promise that suffering will eventually give way to sweetness. That single linguistic move anchors the campaign's emotional logic: in Malaysia, where nearly two years of COVID-19 disruption had tested communities across the country, the phrase carried immediate resonance for Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking audiences who recognised both its classical meaning and its seasonal twist.
The story premise grounds that optimism in something tangible. A traditional restaurant owner struggles through the pandemic while more digitally agile competitors gain visibility online, pushing her to consider closing entirely. The narrative arc follows her path back toward hope, delivering the campaign's central argument — that endurance is itself a form of arrival — through character rather than declaration. The film premiered at Dadi Cinema in Kuala Lumpur on 15 December 2021 and was simultaneously distributed across 988's social media channels, where it accumulated more than 137,000 views and 1,400 likes, according to 988's own published data. In Malaysia, 988 sits within Star Media Group's STAR RFM portfolio, according to Starmediagroup My, giving it access to a well-established Chinese-language audience across Peninsular Malaysia.
ARCHIVE988 operates in a Malaysian radio landscape defined by intense competition for Chinese-language listeners. According to Corporate Astro Com My, Astro Radio commanded approximately 16.1 million weekly listeners, representing around 74.6 percent of the total radio audience in Peninsular Malaysia in GfK RAM Wave 2 of 2022 — a dominant position that smaller or more focused stations must navigate carefully. Against that competitive backdrop, differentiation through culturally resonant content, rather than pure reach, becomes the more viable strategic lever for 988.
The broader radio market in Malaysia also reflects a sector under pressure. According to Statista, the Malaysian radio advertising market contracted sharply during the pandemic period, declining from approximately US$70 million in 2020 to approximately US$45 to 50 million in FY2021 — a drop that concentrated advertiser attention on formats capable of generating genuine emotional engagement rather than passive exposure. A sponsored short film, particularly one tied to the most commercially significant cultural moment in the Malaysian Chinese calendar, represents a direct answer to that challenge.
The consumer insight driving Tiger Comes and Comes is precise. After nearly two years of restrictions, Malaysian Chinese communities were not simply seeking celebration — they were seeking permission to feel hopeful again. The campaign's narrative, centred on a restaurant owner who nearly surrenders to pandemic pressures, mirrors the lived experience of countless small business owners across Malaysia. That specificity of scenario, combined with the lightness of the comic tone, creates what the 2022 贺岁短剧 format does best: it holds difficulty and warmth in the same frame, allowing audiences to feel seen without feeling lectured. Competitors such as Astro and other Chinese-language media brands also produce Lunar New Year content, making tonal and narrative distinctiveness the primary differentiator for 988 in this category.
Directors Chew Soon Yuan (张顺源) and 张向荣 led the production of Tiger Comes and Comes, bringing back the same core creative team that had worked on 988's earlier web drama 《镇家之宝》, according to 988's official campaign documentation. That continuity of collaboration is visible in the film's assured handling of ensemble performance across a cast that includes 陈峰, Sean 李子昭, Joycelyn 慧敏, Chrystina 黄玮瑄, Brandon, Chloe 美云, Cassey, Danny 温力銘, and 彪民, as reported on 988's own platform.
Chew Soon Yuan spoke directly to the conditions of production in an interview with Sin Chew Daily in December 2021, stating: "开工后得严守防疫守则，拍摄期间也担心演员或工作人员染疫，我们希望这一切都会苦尽甘来." That statement — that the production itself was subject to the very anxieties the film dramatises — gives the work an additional layer of authenticity. The crew operated under strict pandemic protocols throughout the shoot, and the director's public acknowledgement of that pressure aligns the creative team's experience directly with the campaign's message about endurance leading to reward.
The choice of a short drama format, rather than a conventional advertisement or music video, reflects 988's longer-standing approach to Chinese New Year content. According to Thestar Com My, 988 has been producing Chinese New Year drama content since at least 2015, when it released the short drama Wu Li Dan Tok Meng Cha Cha. The 2022 production sits within that lineage of narrative-first seasonal storytelling, using character arcs and situational comedy to deliver brand sentiment through story rather than slogan. The official 988 campaign page does not identify a post-production house, music composer, or editor by name, and Clapboard's archive notes conflicting directorial credits in third-party databases, which the primary source material from 988 Com My does not resolve.
Tiger Comes and Comes earned a Clapboard Score of 68 out of 100, reflecting solid cultural execution and clear narrative coherence against a competitive field of Malaysian Chinese Lunar New Year advertising. According to 988's published social media data, the film generated 137,950 views, 1,435 likes, and 52 comments on its primary distribution channel — figures that, while not exceptional by platform standards, are meaningful for a brand-funded short film operating within a defined cultural niche rather than a mass-market media buy.
The structural effectiveness of the campaign rests on several compounding choices. Releasing the film on 15 December 2021 — well ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday period — gave it time to accumulate organic reach and word-of-mouth before audiences were saturated with competing seasonal content. The Dadi Cinema premiere in Kuala Lumpur gave the production a degree of cultural prestige that extended its credibility beyond the social media metrics. The Ajinomoto (M) Berhad sponsorship, as documented by 988, provides evidence that the campaign attracted a credible brand partner willing to associate with 988's audience and tone — itself a signal of perceived value in the Malaysian Chinese-language media market.
No independent third-party performance audits or agency-reported campaign metrics for Tiger Comes and Comes are publicly available. What the data points to is a campaign that achieved its primary objective — positioning 988 as a culturally empathetic media brand for Malaysian Chinese audiences entering the Year of the Tiger — with craft and strategic clarity, if not mass-reach numbers.
Tiger Comes and Comes is a branded Chinese Lunar New Year short film released by Malaysian media brand 988 in December 2021 for the 2022 Year of the Tiger season. Sponsored by Ajinomoto (M) Berhad, it uses a Cantonese pun on 苦尽甘来 to tell a story of post-pandemic resilience through warm, comedic storytelling.
The title 《虎进甘来》 replaces the character for hardship, 苦, with 虎, the word for tiger, transforming the idiom 苦尽甘来 into a Year of the Tiger pun. According to 988's own documentation, this wordplay expresses the hope that, after nearly two years of pandemic difficulty, better times are arriving with the tiger.
Tiger Comes and Comes was directed by Chew Soon Yuan and 张向荣, according to 988's official campaign materials. Chew Soon Yuan told Sin Chew Daily in December 2021 that the team worked under strict pandemic protocols throughout filming, and that the production experience itself embodied the campaign's message about endurance.
The film premiered at Dadi Cinema in Kuala Lumpur on 15 December 2021, according to 988's published campaign information. It was simultaneously released across 988's social media channels, where it accumulated more than 137,000 views, representing an early-season launch strategy ahead of the main Lunar New Year advertising period.
988 has produced Chinese New Year drama content since at least 2015, when it released Wu Li Dan Tok Meng Cha Cha, according to thestar.com.my. Tiger Comes and Comes continues that tradition, reusing the creative team from the earlier web drama 《镇家之宝》 and cementing 988's identity as a narrative-driven Chinese-language media brand in Malaysia.
Tiger Comes and Comes received a Clapboard Score of 68 out of 100. The score reflects strong cultural alignment and coherent narrative craft, recognising the campaign's effective use of Cantonese wordplay and post-pandemic emotional resonance, while acknowledging the modest scale of its documented public engagement relative to broader Malaysian Chinese New Year advertising benchmarks.
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