Though prolific in its own right, the Indonesian film industry have had a tough time penetrating markets beyond their own borders. The ones that receive international distribution—especially the United States—are often arthouse films with the limited target audience of festivalheads. The broader Indonesian films, for better or worse, tend to incite little interest. It's bittersweet that Merantau, which not only nabbed an Audience Award at the 2009 Fantastic Fest but also got picked up by Magnet Releasing for US distribution, is written and directed by a foreigner.
Martial arts films used to be all the rage in Indonesian cinema, but for the past two decades, as the film industry itself waned, martial arts films disappeared, as well. Merantau is the first serious treatment given to one since the so-called new wave of Indonesian films in the 21st century.
As per Minangkabau tradition, young tomato farmer Yuda (Iko Uwais) goes on a "merantau," a spiritual rite-of-passage to become a man that sees him leaving his family for the bright lights of Jakarta. In the big city, he almost immediately runs into trouble, rescuing go-go dancer Astri (Sisca Jessica) from her sorta-pimp (Alex Abbad), who just happens to be supplying local girls to an international human trafficking ring run by a sadistic Eurotrash pretty boy (Mads Koudal) and his right-hand-man brother (Laurent Buson). Yuda's daring rescue of Astri accidentally scars Mr. Eurotrash's face, prompting him to go ballistic for revenge. "EVERY. SCAR. MATTERSSSSS!" he froths. Hey, big surprise here: the brothers are great martial artists, too, and they also have hundreds of henchmen at their disposal.
Welsh writer-director Gareth H. Evans is smart enough to keep the story that simple and turn the focus on bringing the characters alive instead. They're not particularly complex characters, but they're not boringly one-note, either. The film spends quite some time in the beginning establishing Yuda's background, which is a welcome change of pace. The most pleasantly surprising aspect of the movie is the treatment of the villains, who are darkly funny and occasionally tease of an interesting backstory. Evans even offers a moment of sympathy for them towards the end, and it sort of works, thanks to Koudal's charming performance as an exasperated sociopath.
The meat of the content is the fight scenes, of course, which are so well done that they take over the movie completely. The stunts and "holy shit" moments rival that of recent Thai exports, though not as polished in selling pain (henchmen falling from great height in Merantau are obviously wired in their slow descent). The choreography of the fight scenes is probably a big shock to everyone as it turns out to be the best, most refreshing in a martial arts movie in years—even when stacked up to great recent HK outputs. It doesn't hurt that Merantau offers one crazy set piece after another like it's afraid it's not going to get another chance showing off what it can do, so it might as well go all out, throwing body after body for Uwais to break. During the penultimate fight scene, with the climax still ahead, the lady I watched the movie with sighed and said, "I'm exhausted for this man."
In a movie like this, that can only be a good thing. Too often action movies allow the action to appear effortless. That's the rub of using digital trickeries or editing tricks. Even when they're convincingly done, the tolls the movements take aren't reflected in the actors, because there aren't any. Merantau has the heft of old school Jackie Chan set pieces. Choreographed or not, we see Uwais actually run around and perform move after move, the pit and back stains on his shirt gradually enlarging.
A comparison to Ong Bak is inevitable. Aside from the similar rural-warrior-goes-into-the-big-city premise, this is a great showcase for first-timer Iko Uwais, who has the potential to become the next Tony Jaa. Just as Ong Bak blew the lid off the Thai action movie market, let's hope Merantau does the same for Indonesia.
DVD Bonus Features
This international cut of Merantau is actually 30 minutes shorter than the original Indonesian version, but 20 of them are included on the disc as "Deleted Scenes," which are very worth watching. It's too bad the DVD doesn't allow you to watch the film with these scenes inserted back in, even if that would have created a third cut.
Anyone curious about the behind the scenes process of a down-and-dirty martial arts movie like this will get their satisfaction with the features, which are predictably heavily focused on the set pieces, from blooper reel to a "Storyboard to Screen" comparison (the "storyboard" is actually rehearsal videos cut together). There's also an 18-minute "Making of" featurette, which shows excerpts of those scenes not included in the deleted scenes.
"Merantau" is on sale December 28, 2010 and is rated R. Action, Martial-Arts. Written and directed by Gareth Evans. Starring Alex Abbad, Christine Hakim, Iko Uwais, Laurent Buson, Mads Koudal, Sisca Jessica, Yusuf Aulia.
