Yasmin Ahmad's MUKHSIN on DVD

Mukhsin, Yasmin Ahmad's movie which won 2 awards at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival, is now available on DVD and with English subtitles, published by Dragon Jester, a Malaysian company. The menus are in Malay, but those who English speaking folks should have no issues navigating them, and well, it doesn't hurt to click around to get the hang of it all. In my limited understanding of the language, I shall attempt to translate these as I go along in the review.

The visual presentation is in letterbox though, but the thing that matters is that the transfer is decently clear, but could have been better. Then again, you don't have much of a choice for now as it's probably the only Mukhsin DVD out there right now.

A trailer for "Dealova" plays when you pop the DVD into the player, but thankfully one which is skippable. "Tayang Gambar" plays the movie, and "Chapters" allows for scene selection in 12 chapters. "Setup" will bring up the menu for you to tweak the audio settings and select your choice of subtitles. Audio is available in Dolby Surround 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1 or Digital DTS Surround, good options to listen to the musical composition Hujan, which plays partially at the animated root menu, sung by Adibah Noor. Subtitles are available in English (Inggeris), Chinese (Bahasa Cina) and Malay (Bahasa Malaysia). I've viewed the DVD using English subtitles (the only language amongst the three I'm fairly competent in) and it's accurate and close to what my memory serves as those during the film screening. Some minor typos here and there however, but that doesn't mar nor interfere with the understanding of the movie.

The DVD extras ("Bahagian Khas") are found a little wanting. There isn't any making-of documentaries (unlike the other available DVDs for Yasmin Ahmad's earlier works Sepet and Gubra), and pardon me, but I didn't enjoy the trailers of movies ("Pratonton") such as Gong, Unseeable, Jatuh Cinta Lagi, and Chermin to be included here. Trailers for the other Yasmin Ahmad movies are welcomed though, especially one for her upcoming film Muallaf (The Convert)!

There's the inclusion of a theatrical trailer (2:15) for Mukhsin under "Treler", and a one page synopsis ("Sinopsis") is included as well, though it's a one page text in Malay with photos from the rehearsals. In fact, it's exactly the same as the entire back cover of the DVD sleeve.

The DVD touts "Bonus Video Klip Lagu - Hujan Keronchong", but it actually provides easy access under the "Video Muzik" (Music Video) section to the two parts in the movie where the song Hujan is performed, one early in the movie, and the other right at the end performed by Yasmin's parents. You can't select which one to play though, as they play one after another. Kinda reminds you of the Bollywood styled DVDs where the menus more often than not provides you links to where the song and dance sequences are.

All in all, for those who missed Mukhsin's theatrical run here, this is now your opportunity to watch it in the comfort of your home. Oh, and for a review of the movie, you can read an earlier post of mine containing the review here.

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