Merantau - Movie Review

I finally watched Indonesian movie "Merantau" a couple of weeks ago.

I was amazingly surprised. The movie touched me on several levels.

First of all as the average viewer, this movie amazed me due to the fact that it tells the story of a man who tries to do the right thing and that he has amazing fighting skills. What was touching is the fact that he was willing to risk his life for the sake of helping others and for the sake of making his mother proud of him.

As a fan of Asian cinema I was touched to see all the things that I would put in a movie myself. Martial arts, drama and some kind of a heroic bloodshed moment. There is a moment where someone is gunned down Chow Yun-fat-style, but not a moment did it feel out of place in the overall film.

And last but not least, as someone who has a slight idea about the process of making this film (and making films in general) I was absolutely amazed to see that Gareth Evans, a British-born director, pulled it off. And as his theatrical film debut, "Merantau" was more than convincing, especially since he worked with cast & crew whose language he probably doesn't speak (or haven't spoken at that time. Or maybe I'm completely wrong and he studied Indonesian. If so, excuse my pretentiousness.) I know what it's like to prepare a film and work on a set if you have to communicate through interpreters. Even though you get used to it during the process, it can be tiring. After a while, though, while I was working on a couple of film projects with international cast & crew, many people, didn't need any interpreters anymore. They communicated in little English with gestures etc.

The Silat (Indonesian martial art) shown in this film rocks. My praise (if it's worth anything) goes out to Team Silat Harimau, Edwel Datuk Rajo Gampo Alam (fight choreographer) and Iko Uwais (lead actor) for choreographing the Indonesian martial arts of Pencak Silat in a way that it looks efficient and brutal on-screen.

There are some clever ideas, for example a fight scene at a location with a lot of red containers when Iko faces dozens of opponents. The filmmakers thought about a way how he isn't attacked by all of the bad guys at once, as we can see so often in so many other martial arts films. You know one guy fighting another and all the other bad guys waiting and dancing around in the background.

If there is one more thing I would like to praise it would the music and the editing. I don't know if the film was edited to the music or the music trimmed to the film's editing or both. But either way the music by Fajar Yuskemal and Aria Prayogi fits well with the dynamic editing and at some moments during the film I was and still am hoping that a soundtrack for this film will be released.

And if there is one thing I was a bit unhappy about it was the acting of Mads Koudal, the film's lead villain. He isn't really a bad actor, it's just that you could see that he was applying all the classic acting techniques you learn at acting schools.

I watched the UK disc of "Merantau". I noted that some scenes that I had seen in the film's trailer weren't in the film. At first I thought that maybe the director cut them out of the final film due to pacing etc., but I found out later that it was cut down to an "International Version". That's a shame really, because a lot of scenes from the beginning are missing (the Islamic prayer of Iko and his family etc.) What bothered me the most, though was the fact that one major fighting scene is cut out. It is the one that can be seen in the making of, which takes place in the warehouse where they are recruiting fighters. Sad, because I would have loved to see that long tracking shot without cut, which is talked about in detail on one of the making of segments on the DVD's special features. It looks like a great fight scene to me and I hope to see an uncut version soon.

For trailer and more more check out:

http://www.merantau-movie.com