I never actually saw Ong Bak so I can't comment on similarities. But there's much to enjoy in Merantau: the buns of steel, the dialogue of wood, the fights of brutal poetry, the hilariously timid subtitles, and the fact that Christine Hakim seems to have wandered in from an entirely different movie. Oh yes, the political subtext, with its parallels to Avatar (notice how the villain looks like Dubya). I wonder why the distributor didn't put in Malay subtitles on top of the English & Chinese ones though, especially for the Minang scenes.
The version screening here is the international cut, which is about 30 (yes, 30) minutes shorter than what the Indonesians saw. I don't think any of the fight scenes were dropped, though.
There will be some people who will recommend this film for 'introducing silat to the world.' I guess these are the same strange people who will watch Avatar because they care about rainforest conservation. A popcorn flick is a popcorn flick, regardless of whether it comes in a Padang flavour.
8 comments:
ada satu babak aksi yang dipotong, juga agak panjang, si Uda (maknanya abang long, atau panggilan buat abang yg tua) yg mengajak Yuda bertaruh ala fight club di sebuah flat tak siap.. sangat2 best, tapi dipotong..
Oh ye ke? Saya kenal aktor yg jadi abangnya, jadi nak juga tengok dia beraksi!
Celaka betul. How many of the story is loss due to the 30 mins cut?
Tanyalah org yang dah tengok kedua-dua versi, seperti Fadz kita.
banyak di ambil dari ong bak dan tum yaan goong.
I just saw this. Whoever said it has similarities with Ong Bak and any bad Thai martial arts flick has no idea what they are saying.
Cuba terangkan sikit apa yang sama? Other than both are martial arts flicks starring a non-chinese Asian dude?
Anyone?
dasat...
The similarities might be in the storyline, country boy goes to the city and fights some bad guys. But I think that kind of storyline has been in the martial art genre since ermm forever? As we call it "pendekar turun gunung". So, it's not fair to say it copies Ong Bak and Tom Yum Goong storyline.
Oh BTW, the similarity might be also in the physical feature of Iko. He looks a lot like Tony Jaa, only he's a younger, better looking, fairer skinned version of Tony Jaa.
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