Merantau Warrior

Ni nak cerita sikit tentang movie ni. Mula2 kata nak tayang kat Sabah ni, bila sampai tarikh yang ditetapkan, tengok2 tiada pula ditayang. Kena cari DVD baru bleh tengok. Pelik betul la dorang ni. Apa masalah cerita ni pula sehingga tak ditayangkan di Sabah? Ada unsur tak baik ka? tak ada juga. Entahlah. Dorang anti sabah kot. haha.

Have you ever seen Ong Bak? Even though Ong Bak is not a genre of movie but i guess people already make it one. If you watch a movie like Fury, Raging Of Phoenix, and this one Merantau Warrior, it is an Ong Bak genre movie.

What i like about this movie is obviously the fighting choreography. I always think why people stop making Silat movie. Everything nowadays is about Kung Fu or karate, or universal marshal art where one punch and the other avoid it and return the punch. Do you remember years ago, there is a lot o Silat movie, during P.Ramlee time, during A.R Badul, until late 1990's, suddenly Silat was gone. Just like that.

Not until Ong Bak released. Craving for Silat movie, most of silat fan would not throw away the chance to watch Tony Jaa reviving Silat again in this world. But then, is that it? We gave away Silat to Thailand which is proud of their Muay Thai ( it is a form or a branch of Silat Art). Why don't we make it ourselves. A movie like that.

Then this Merantau Warrior came. True, it is from our neighbor country Indonesia, but it is good enough to make us open our eyes and start to realize that Silat is not a dance art but a real martial art which is deadly and dangerous. If asked to most of people from southeast asia, kung fu or silat, which one is more deadly? I guess a lot will say Silat. However, young generation will answer Kung Fu, because they only saw Jet Li and Jackie Chan in the movie.

What is good about Merantau Warrior is, it does not really plagiarize Ong Bak, it is the same genre of movie, but it has its own story line, and the fighting, is 100% Silat and not Muay Thai. You can see the similarities but also you will see a lot of difference between Silat and Muay thai. This movie can be classified as original even though a lot say it plagiarize ong bak.

The story line...simple. The martial art choreography, 70% brilliant. Does it open our eyes about introducing this movie again in the future? Certainly.

I hope that many movie like this will come out in the near future. I hope one of them came from Malaysia because we have our own Silat style also.

For those who want to watch a brand new silat martial art movie, i recommend this movie. We can learn a lot of move from it.

I gave this movie 3 out of 5 star. plus one moon because of the martial art choreographer.

Give it a try.