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All our top filmmakers did their best work for television rather than the silver screen. Shuhaimi Baba's modest "Maria", one of the first things shown on TV3, traces the development of a modern marriage and is more engaging and coherent than any of her celluloid efforts; likewise, Erma Fatima's TV-movies "Jangan" and "Daerah Syafika" are simultaneously more provocative and sincere than the stuff she does for the big screen.

It may have something to do with the fact that TV is a more intimate and manageable medium. Producers are not as anxious about "box-office viability," and so greater risks can be taken in terms of casting and even plot. It's the same with U-Wei bin Hajisaari. His most celebrated work "Kaki Bakar" was made for TV3 but rejected by the station for somehow containing anti-social messages. This impressive work would have just died away were it not for an influential Frenchman named Pierre Rissient.

M. Rissient was in Kuala Lumpur in 1994 to look at U-Wei's work for possible inclusion in the Cannes Film Festival. This producer had previously functioned as talent scout when he introduced the brilliant Filipino director Lino Brocka to Western audiences through the Cannes selection of his films, starting with the social-realist melodrama "Insiang" (1976) so he was obviously someone to reckon with.

He had heard of the fuss created by U-Wei's scalding big-screen debut "Perempuan, Isteri dan Jalang" (1993). After the screening, he didn't find "Perempuan" worthy of inclusion ("The acting is so bad than in the first 20 minutes the entire audience would walk out, walk out, walk out!" he thundered) but asked for other work. U-Wei passed him a few TV movies. When he viewed "Kaki Bakar," Rissient said: "That's the one."

"Kaki Bakar" sticks very close to the plot of its inspiration, the William Faulkner story "Barn Burning," but wholly transposed to rural Malaysia. A Javanese worker-for-hire, Kakang (Khalid Salleh) takes out his rage at his perceived oppressors through arson. His younger son Kesumo (Ngasrizal Ngasri) is simultaneously fearful of and inspired by him. The slow-burning tension (within the family and also between the family and the society around them) reaches its inexorable climax in a literal and metaphorical conflagration.

It was a strong story with strong performances, but some work needed to be done before it could screen at the world's most prestigious film-fest. For starters, the bland music score had to go, and was replaced by a flavourful and haunting gamelan soundtrack by the Indonesian composer Embie C. Noer. Then the 70-minute video had to be transferred to 35mm film in Australia at a cost of RM150,000, still bringing the budget to a total of only RM220,000. The film transfer was sponsored by Finas, the Malaysian film development agency. This was the first local work to be invited to Cannes, which understandably galvanised agencies into action.

I am stressing the humble origins of "Kaki Bakar" to show that it was never made with the lofty goal of "aiming for foreign festivals" or to "break into the world market." It was simply an honest story told in a searing way; this is why it's so compelling. A few jealous Malaysians such as Jins Shamsuddin have claimed that its international acclaim originates from its Third World themes of poverty and backwardness, but "Kaki Bakar" is an extremely sophisticated film, if sophistication is measured in the sense of psychological insight and cinematic acumen rather than surface appearances.

The Cannes screening in the non-competitive Un Certain Regard category of1995 was an unqualified success; most people in the sold-out crowd had never seen anything from Malaysia before. Critic Richard Corliss of Time magazine singled out "Kaki Bakar" as "a true find", and the film was invited to about 20 other festivals, including Berlin and Montreal. Of particular relevance to U-Wei was the fact that it screened at the New York New Directors/New Films Festival, since that was the city in which he received his film education in the Eighties.

Now after six years, "Kaki Bakar" finally screens in Malaysia. The delay had nothing to do with censorship (there are only three small snips of dialogue, sacrificing some of Kakang's more virulent lines like "The Malays here are weak") but lack of money and, if truth be told, lack of organisational skills. U-Wei is Malaysia's best director but he's not the savviest producer when it comes to marketing and distribution. His last film, "Jogho" fizzled at the box-office in 1999 because of this, and I can only hope the same fate doesn't greet "Kaki Bakar."

But so what if our audiences aren't ready for it? I saw it recently for the fifth time and was impressed anew. The faces are wonderful: witness the Indonesian maid nervously giving out a bag of food to Kakang, and the way Kesumo realises at the coffee-shop that his father is determined to go down the self-destructive path once again. And the provocative juxtaposition of detail: the way Kakang corrects his children's Koranic recital while grimly sharpening his rubber-tapping knife.

Although set in a small community, it's impossible to watch the film without also being aware of its wider socio-economic context, and of the resonant archetype of Kakang as an embattled outsider whose greatest enemy might just be himself. The power of "Kaki Bakar" lies in the fact that it's specific and universal at the same time. The anger and injustice that push social interaction is also evident in the volatile - and, in the end, tragically uncompromising - relationship between father and son.

The seemingly peripheral female characters in this male-centric story contribute a wealth of detail and promote unsentimental empathy. The way Kesumo's sisters snap at each other, coupled with the domestic details that are foregrounded against Kakang's badass mission for revenge, take us further into (to use Mel Tang's phrase) "carefully orchestrated" social-realism than Malay movies would normally dare. Similarly, the best shot in "Jogho" is when Normah Damanhuri draws water from a well while her husband and his cronies march off for a bout of bullfighting. The mise-en-scene of U-Wei may not be as pitiless (or to his credit, not as shrill) as that of Lino Brocka, but if you're looking for the cream of modern Malaysian cinema, this is as good as it gets.