Goaded on by his ne'er-do-well companions, Nyunt Hlaing starts to impersonate General Cartoon intentionally, to the ire of the real thug, who is temporarily incapacitated by malaria. Meanwhile, Daphne, a feisty young woman determined to avenge her brother’s death, becomes entangled in Nyunt Hlaing’s ruse. Despite the circumstances, a romance blossoms.

As the story unfolds, this comedy of errors reveals the absurdities of a world governed by ‘the law of the jungle’, bringing to light the struggles of the poor, and the corruption in the military. The complexities played out in the film lead to an unexpected climax, which underscores the often thin line between hero and villain, comedy and tragedy.

Myanmar has had a long history of filmmaking, but most of its output is now lost. In this context, it is perhaps not surprising that parts of the 35mm film reels that make up the complete General Cartoon are also missing. The version presented at Painting with Light has been re-constituted from 11 surviving reels that the Thai Film Archive recently digitised, and the gaps filled with data from the U-matic tapes digitised by the Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive. This combination accounts for the variations in image quality in the film.