Merantau

I liked how when there were only a handful of grunts to fight, it took at least twenty choreographed punches to take each one down, but when there are forty guys coming at our hero (who just so happens to be confined to the top of a Chinese cargo container), he manages to incapacitate each one with a smack or two. And by 'liked,' I mean 'potato.' 41 points awarded to the filmmakers for successfully locating the Indonesian Jeff Goldblum and casting him as a pimp.

This is why it's good the Raid had as little plot as it did. The fights are good but the plot is pretty much Double Dragon except that it takes it seriously.

Fun and cool; the ending gives it a sentimental and poetic stamp.

Has the same vibe as 'Rumble in the Bronx' and 'Ong Bak'. Basic story, badass fighting, the formula of success for a martial arts film.

The concept is overdone and nothing about it is new here, but the colours are fun and the martial arts are engaging, if not magnificent. The shipping crate ending was bad, the tomato-picking ending surprisingly touching.

Merantau is a great action movie but it falters in the over-handed drama. This is the first Gareth Evans movie with martial artist Iko Uwais. The two are better know for The Raid but this movie is a good introduction to where these two started. The director did a good job of shooting the movie and showed us quite a few different locals in Indonesia while being predominantly in Jakarta. I am glad I was able to see so much. I wouldn't watch it again but it was fun once.

Love the action, hate the drama

65.000

Well, at least it was good enough to showcase Iko Uwais' martial arts talent, and made it possible for Evans to follow it with The Raid. The story, however, is painfully corny, and low production values makes it look like a TV melodrama.

Film di formazione, buona fotografia e montaggio. Colonna sonora incalzante e buon ritmo generale. Ottime le sequenze di combattimento. Finale un po melodrammatico.

sorry but a certain someone's demise was just too silly for a better rating...

It has MORE story than The Raid, but it's pretty corny and the ROI for all that time spent building characters is nowhere near high enough to justify the relative lack of action, which is also less impressive across the board. Plus that dude who played the villain was fucking terrible.

The seeds are here for anyone examining Evans beginnings. But it's still well worth watching for what it is on its own -- a beat em up fight movie for genre fans.

Overall Enjoyment: 5/40, Plot/Themes: 0/20, Cinematography/Direction: 5/20, Acting/Writing: 5/20 This movie was made to showcase a pretty unique Indonesian fighting style. The action scenes were quite good, and the main star is very talented. Unfortunately there were only 2 10 minute action scenes, and the rest of the movie was filled with incredibly boring, poorly written, poorly acted plot. Luckily the director learned from his mistake, and went on to make The Raid, which was awesome.

The Main problem with this movie is that the fight scenes appear to be too staged. What I mean is that they lack power, they seem more like demonstrations then fight for your life action scenes. This really kills the mood of the movie

So this IS a remake of Ong Bak...right?

In trying to hard to have a meaningful plot, you sit bored or indifferent until the next fight scene. Not a bad first effort from the guys behind The Raid, but, obviously, I'm expecting The Raid to blow this out of the water.

I'm not a big fan of people getting kicked in the balls, but... this movie definitely needed more people getting kicked in the balls. There's too much drama, sucking a lot of fun out of the movie. Once the fights starts they showcase an interesting style and are often pretty decent, but it's painful to see that a lot of segments were sped up to make it look more dynamic. That's kinda lame.

i haven't seen a lot of silat movies, so it was nice to see a fresh style, but the film really doesn't show off anything particularly amazing about it. uwais doesn't really have the star power it takes to carry a film like this, and the stunts aren't very ambitious. it's also filmed really stupidly, the dramatic pauses made me want to bang my head against my desk. i would totally forgive that if the fights were a little better, but they were just solid, not spectacular.

So, what we have here is basically a rehash of "Prime Cut," with Iko Uwais in the Lee Marvin part. Undoubtedly the best Indonesian martial arts movie I've ever seen...but it's also the only Indonesian martial arts movie I've ever seen, so, you know, there's that. Uwais is a commanding presence, displaying some of the young Jet Li's intensity and often moving so quickly and furiously in the fight scenes that the camera has trouble tracking him. Cool. Jeeja Yanin could kick his ass, though.

The ending was befitting of the main character. The entire movie, based upon the development of his principles which in the end was his own undoing. Many problems could have been averted had he used his head ANYTIME within that journey of wandering. The biggest failure lies in the fact that the time setting si present day. Yet only 4 people out of the 200 he fights in the movie have a gun. seriously? only 4 wtf, he reappears enough times for someone to get a gun and just end this story