NYAFF 2010: MERANTAU Review

[Our thanks to Mark Popham for the following review.]

Hey, did someone order an "Ong Bak"? I mean, I think that's what they delivered- looks like a young man leaves his country home, goes to the big city, steps in to stop injustice using an elbow-heavy martial arts? I don't know, though, this isn't Tony Jaa, it's some other guy, and he doesn't have the same acrobatic skill as Jaa. On the other hand, some of these shots look pretty good...and the score works really well...man, these shots, and that editing...holy SHIT, is that the bad guy?

This was pretty much my reaction throughout the first twenty or so minutes of "Merantau", an Indonesian film that I wasn't actually that thrilled to receive in my NYAFF packet. I had sort of pegged it as an "Ong Bak" clone, and the first five minutes- the protagonist, Yuda (Iko Uwais), doing alone-style martial arts in front of a row of cliffs while a voiceover explains the titular Minangkabau tradition of Merantau- didn't do much to dispell this notion.

The shots were gorgeous, however, and the high level of quality throughout kept me watching until Yuda got to the Big City (Jakarta, in this case), witnessed Astri (Sisca Jessica), the damsel currently in distress, and began to- holy shit, kick a bottle directly into some dude's face?

The dude in question is Ratger (Mads Koudal), a Danish human-trafficker who is in Jakarta with his brother and partner in crime Luc (Laurent Buson), trying to assemble a shipping container of women for undoubtedly horrible parts unknown. Getting shards in his face understandably pisses him off, so much so that he starts strutting around screaming threats with the shards  still stuck in his face, stopping to pull a chunk out only so he can slash the face of a subordinate with it. Now he's pissed off, wants Astri in his shipping container and Yuda in a shallow grave.

Iko Uwais doesn't yet have the screen presence of Tony Jaa, presence here defined as "bug-eyed fury", and he lacks a little on the acrobatics- there's no show-stoppers here like Jaa leaping through a hoop of razor wire. But everything else in the film is at such a high level, including a script apparently written by Welsh director Gareth Evans and then translated into Indonesian, that I didn't mind at all. Mads Koudal is just terrifying, with some of the best lines and definitely the best introduction in the film.

High quality all around, and while (SPOILER) the story disappoints when it gets a little "girlfriend in the refrigerator" towards the end (END SPOILER) it was definitely a pleasant surprise. I'm not sure if we needed another "Ong Bak", but I think we could really get some mileage out of some more "Merantau"s.