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Reviews
Mat Kilau: Kebangkitan Pahlawan (2022)
Syamsul needs a better writer
The thing about Syamsul is he's a visionary directory, talented but he clearly needs to focus more on the writing department or just get someone who's better at this.
Mat Kilau has its moment that you can truely feels its sheer epic scale and heightened your spirit of nationalism. The fight sequences were fairly good and really embodied the greatness of Silat. To summarize, Mat Kilau is fast, action packed and straightforward formulaic biography that able to cater most Malaysians taste.
Now the writing...
The script is just lackluster and have Syamsul's trademark all over it. It's very preachy and loud telling you "Get up and fight for your country and religion!". Is that bad? No, not at all. I understand the intention of sending some messages to the viewer (and it clearly worked). But the gripe of having this kind of script is that it makes the character seems unnatural and very one dimensional.
The pacing problem . It moves from scene to scene
way too fast that makes me lost the sense of time. And leaves the story unable to breath on its own. This is likely a screenplay issue than editing.
Mat Kilau, the titular role is very one dimensional and there isn't any interesting arcs to this character even though Adi Putra nails the character well enough. Even the character played by Beto Kusyairi has more depth to it.
Some side plots and minor characters are hugely underdeveloped that they suddenly appeared near the end of the film. I don't understand if Syamsul intended it to be a surprise or something but the outcome are meh without any of those build up.
Overall, its a decent watch. Good effort by the team. Go watch and support Mat Kilau at the theatres.
The Boys: Payback (2022)
Feels like a movie
After The Boys serves us with all the non stop crazy stuff in season 2, the opening episode is kinda a bit slow in pacing but the introductory to the characters and the build up on what happening next is amazing. It feels more like a movie and honestly feels different in tone.
Revenge of the Pontianak (2019)
A style over substance
The only good thing about this film is the technical aspect. The cinematography is top notch, very colourful for horror film. The production design and costume design too deserved a praise.
Apart from that, it's overall a mediocre film. The characters are written shallowly. No single character i feel invested nor i found interesting. The film literally can just finish in less than hour. I felt that story stretched too long that the 2nd act being completely boring and doesn't even added anything.
I found the ending funny too. Suddenly the Pontianak just went mad and wrestle, flying kick all the men. Its like you seeing something from Van Helsing, pretty cool but funny.
Jojakdoen dosi (2017)
over the top nonsense cliche
Its cliche. To sum it up, guy get framed for murder then got jail. He got beaten in the jail and he 'never give up'. He found way to overcome the bullies. And somehow make it out to jail because of 'good friends' in jail. It just pure cliche over and over again.
Daulat (2020)
a political drama for mass audience
The first thing that bugged me is the opening. It opened like a typical MCU movies which sets a not so right tone to the genre. And yes, it has a credit scene too! which is unnecessary. Reminded me of my primary school essay where we have to sum up the story with proverbs.
In terms of technical aspect, its quite good for a local movie standard. They got the colours and the camera right but there is something wrong with the movie FPS, it just doesn't feel 24fps. Editing is just good enough, although I can see sometimes the editor tries hard to make a scene intense but ended up looking awkward. Now the big problem, the musical score. It's loud and doesnt quite fit to the movie and unnecessary at times. Come on la it's a political drama, the score should be minimised especially during serious scene.
The story is alright. Although, the script can be awkward at times but it served it purpose. Basically it's a political drama with a twist of your typical Malay drama sub plot. Not a bad thing but it's dragged out then it should have been. The main plot is there, it just a little bit too straightforward and simple. Not political enough I guessed? It can be engaging but the movie is surprisingly fast. I see their targeting mass audience but they set the movie in different tone than I expected it to be for a political drama. The twist is well...
Acting deserved a praised here. Vanidah Imran did a good job playing a fierce and strong woman. Gotta give her point for grabbing someone's dick, that's acting. The whole cast doing fine except Rashidi Ishak, his line delivery is just eh?
Overall it's quite enjoyable to see. Not a bad try at all.
Munafik 2 (2018)
cheap jumpscares, poor editing, watch Dukun instead
There's some good exorcism scene but mostly this film suffer from bad film editing and too many repetitive jumpscares that non stop throughout the film. Not to mention the poor sound editing and bad script. Mostly people point out the message that the movie delivered but unfortunately thats not the case, here, this film itself is bad.
Dukun (2018)
Dukun sets a high benchmark for local movies
Yup,this coming from a moviegoer that never have an interest to watch local movie at cinema.Dukun marks as my first.I'm actually aware that the film is not an actual horror film like the way it was advertised in the trailer.You can see these dissapointed reviews are mostly coming out from people that actually expected this to be a movie full of jumpscares and spooky things.Firstly,Dukun is more like a crime/thriller film that mix with court room drama and some horror elements though.The first minutes of this film,it already absorp me to its own atmosphere and the mood that mostly malay movie fail to do so.The hunting ost and great cinematography actually helps the film to build the mood of an actual crime film that you will see in some hollywood film,i cant describe it properly so hope you understand this.Why does it sets a high benchmark?Production value.The cinematography,score,sets,special effects,film editing can put any local film to shame.Not to mention the acting,Umie Aida brings her best yet performance and Faizal Hussein should get a mention too.Pacing and editing is the key to make a crime/triller film good,and this film managed to do a very good job on that which suprising for a local film standard.
Final word,this film got my vote for Best Picture for the FFM award and yes including Best Cinematography,Best Ost,Best Music Score,Best Director,Best Film Editing and Best Actress.
KL Special Force (2018)
Save your time
Shouting, bang bang. BOOM, shouting again, BOOM, bang bang. To be concluded, this is the closest malaysian movie can get to Michael Bay's works.