A new film in conservative mainly-Muslim Malaysia has been heavily criticised for showing religious officials cooking and being friendly with prostitutes.

Critics say that Yasmin Ahmad's Gubra - a sequel to an earlier film which dealt with inter-racial romance - poses a threat to Malay Muslim culture and could corrupt Muslim audiences.

Film producer Raja Azmi Raja Sulaiman complained on a weekend television talkshow that the character of a bilal, or muezzin who performs the call to prayer from mosques, should not have been shown at work in the kitchen.

"A pious wife would not allow her husband to cook," Raja Azmi was quoted as saying by the Sun daily.

Raja Azmi, along with film critic Akmal Abdullah, also said that the bilal, who together with his wife was friendly with sex workers in their neighbourhood, was unfit to hold the role.

"He should have called the religious authorities to catch them. What kind of bilal allows these activities to continue in his neighbourhood?" Akmal said.

Yasmin's Gubra is the follow-up to her critically-acclaimed Sepet , which also caused an uproar and was eventually released in cinemas after several cuts by the censorship board.

Akmal said it was confusing for Malay Muslims to see Orked, the heroine in Sepet who is depicted as a pious Muslim girl, fall in love with a Chinese kafir (infidel) who works as a peddler of pirated DVDs.

Yasmin ( right ) defended the movies, but conceded she could have shot some scenes differently including ones which showed men and women freely touching each other, and another where an actor's buttocks were exposed.

"However, I would not change the other scenes or the storyline," she was quoted as saying by the Star daily today.

Husband-wife relationship

Other commentators moved calm the furore. Norhayati Kaprawi of the rights group Sisters in Islam said it was inaccurate to say the religion only permitted women to do housework.

"It is not stated in the Quran that it is only the wife's duty. In fact, the Prophet (Muhammad) sewed his own clothes," she said.

Ahmad Shukri Yusoff, sharia head at a government agency, also said the Prophet was known to have helped his wife in the kitchen.

"Entering a kitchen doesn't degrade a man. If anything, it shows how much he loved his wife and it makes the husband-wife relationship more affectionate," he said.

Sepet from a Malay word referring to the shape of ethnic Chinese eyes, was a small-budget film that won the Best Asian Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival last year.

The depiction of a love affair between a Malay girl and a Chinese boy amid social and racial pressures has won numerous Malaysian film awards, but caused an uproar with scenes like one showing the heroine in a restaurant that served pork.

Other scenes that did not make it to the big screen included one where a married Malay Muslim couple were dancing dressed only in their "sarongs".

Gubra was first released in neighbouring Singapore, after initial problems with Malaysian censors. It has since been approved by the censorship board without any cuts.