Review - Sekali Lagi Pontianak

The title of this post seems to suggest that this is a review of some sort of Malay spoof movie... which it is not... it is a review of two movies as a result of last night's movie marathon at Pavilion.

This is quite a busy month for me, even though I still watch movies every week but my movie days are normally reserved for the high profile blockbusters of the summer and my friends definitely won't wanna watch Malay movies, especially these two... today I am going to see Harry Potter's final movie, so it was decided that I would watch Sekali Lagi at 6pm and then Tolong Awek Aku Pontianak at 9pm.

Sekali Lagi is a charming little movie starring three of the best working actors today, Lisa Surihani, Shaheizy Sam and Bront Palarae. It's about Arman (Shaheizy Sam), who is an adult but has the mind of a child. Autism. On his daily outings, he met Amy (Mia Sara Nasuha, who I suspect is Afdlin Shauki's daughter, but I could be wrong), and they hit it off really well, since they were about the same age mentally, but Amy is a bit more matured though.

Amy's mom, Shila (Lisa Surihani) is a single mother working in the city and is being helped by Bront Palarae's character, who is carrying a torch for her. Unfortunately, Shila was still badly scarred after being dumped by the love of her life and finding out she was pregnant with Amy at the same time.

The very first thing you see when the movie started is the labelling... this movie was said to be a romantic comedy... romantic comedy my ass... there was barely any laughing out loud scenes that would constitute a comedy... it is not even a dark comedy... it's actually a drama... a very emotional drama at that... I actually cried... haha... yup, nothing shameful in admitting it... lucky I was alone and there was barely anybody in the cinema...

Anyway, this is a very charming, emotional drama... and the storylines get peeled off one layer at a time... like an onion and each layer added quite a punch to the movie... and it's all tied up together pretty neatly... for a layman like me, I was pretty impressed with the level of storytelling here...

Acting-wise, this movie is rife with good actors... I am biased I admit but I love Lisa... she did a really good job here... so does Bront Palarae and Kartina Aziz... Shaheizy Sam is of course really good, hands down... the young actor in the movie is not bad as well, although there are times the dubbing failed her but mostly she did a good job, for someone that young...

Any movie that gets me crying is a good one...

After this movie, it's off to watch Tolong Awek Aku Pontianak... from director James Lee, who is increasingly becoming one of my favorite local directors. His first movie... or maybe the movie of his I saw was Histeria and it blew me away... Sini Ada Hantu was a good movie as well... so I was looking forward to seeing this one, even though the title really turned me off...

Tolong! Awek Aku Pontianak is about Bob who is a floormat/wallflower who just got dumped by his gold-digging girlfriend... he moves to a different house to have a fresh new start... and his neighbors are two girls who happens to be pontianaks... of course he falls for the older sister without knowing she is a supernatural entity...

But then Bob's boss tried stealing her from Bob and she revealed her true identity to him and he plots to save Bob from her, even though Bob is smitten with her... In a side plot, another supernatural entity is coming to KL because a bomoh type person is hot on her tail...

This movie is rife with pop culture reference... just about every single horror movie was referenced... from Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam to Zombi Kampung Pisang... although this movie is less funny than Sini Ada Hantu and less scary than Histeria...

Acting-wise, this movie is nice enough, even the cartoon-ish characters were handled well...

I've never been a Sazzy Falak fan but I enjoyed her performance in this movie. Liyana Jasmay supports nicely but she was rarely required to do anything much but pouts and stand around looking cute... Zahiril Adzim's second movie role (as far as I am concerned coz I've only seen him in one other movie, Senjakala) and he did a better job here. He played wallflower well with a bit of the charm and likeable aura thrown in.

The surprise for me in this movie is Nurul Wahab, the singer... she seemed natural at this... maybe I've missed her doing some movies, I don't know... but then again, she was not required to do much...

I do have one gripe though... the fight scenes were a bit wooden... would've loved seeing the pontianaks going at it with a showing of impressive powers or something... but you can totally see when they were fighting it was broad swipes at nothing...

Other than that, I had fun watching two good movies... I have read some reviews and my colleagues have told me stuff about both movies but I cleared my mind when watching... wanted to watch without prejudice or expectations... unfortunately, some stuff stuck to mind and I saw what they were talking about but with relatively low expectations, I watched both and thoroughly enjoyed the movies...

P/S - today is The Deathly Hallows Part 2 at Times Square *gurly shrieks*

Marathon

Today, after work... going to Pavilion to catch two Malay movies... yup, I do watch Malay movies, and these two aren't even horror movies... okay2, Tolong Awek Aku Pontianak can be considered horror, but it's more comedic...

One of my favorite Malay actresses, Lisa Surihani... and two of the better actors working today, Bront Palarae and Shaheizy Sam... hope it's good...

One of my favorite directors... James Lee... looking forward to this one after Histeria and Sini Ada Hantu...

Review - Senjakala

As I've posted before, this month, we got a barrage of horror movies coming our way. Senjakala was the second movie after Dilarang Masuk. Penunggu Istana will be showing this week and next week, Seru. I have seen Seru, and cannot wait to write something about it next week.

Anyway, I went to KLCC to watch Senjakala with Sifu (who taught me a lot of things to do at the movies that would definitely save some money, haha). This would be my first time watching a movie with a well-regarded blogger/reviewer that was not at a media preview. And he did tell me that he would walk out if the movie sucks... (read his review here)

But he did not walk out. Not sure whether it was because the film was good, or it was okay, or because we paid good money for the tickets. Yes, I got a couple of free tickets but we can only go watch it Saturday onwards. Anybody want those tickets, just email me k? :)

So, Senjakala. This would be how many horror movies Ahmad Idham's made now? I lost count. I remember Niyang Rapik (which was not too bad, quite interesting for me... and starred Liyana Jasmay), and last year's Damping Malam, which I did not get to see, but will soon... anyway, I think Ahmad Idham has his own stamp by now, and we can see plenty of his stamp on this movie....

The movie starts with Khalisa dreaming. About running through the forest and bumping into a huge wooden house where she saw herself being possessed. Wakes up. She's in a car with her fiance. Then her fiance ran over a haggardly woman, and he was ran over by a lorry. Then she wakes up. From that moment on, she feels this strong urge to return to her grandmother's house in the kampung, which she was told not to do so by her parents. Of course, she defied them and went anyway, with a girl friend in tow.

There, she found her creepy grandmother, and even creepier kampung folks, who seemed to want her gone. Also, there's this guy who keeps saving her life but refused to interact with her. And there was a bit of a slo-mo 80's style shot when they touched... I think it was supposed to mean that there was an attraction...

So after a while, Khalisa found out the truth of what's going on and that she has an inheritance from her ancestors that she needs to accept, which was why she felt the tug to go visit the grandmother...

Story-wise, it's not bad. And the way it was layered... it was a nice touch I think...

Unfortunately, when it comes down to the actual horror part of this horror movie, it was severely lacking. For a horror-fest April, so far the two movies shown were not exactly horror movies.

And the entities that do show up on screen, especially early on... not exactly relevant to the story. Ahmad Idham did this with Niyang Rapik. All kinds of ghoulies but none of them were actually relevant to the storylines.

I heard from my colleagues and from reading other reviews that the sound mixing was done at Finas and yes, the sound was nice. But... but... why oh why did they use a rattling snake as one of the sounds? It got annoying after a while. Do we even have rattlers in Malaysia?

The actors are not too bad in this movie, but I do think there was a bit of a problem with the dubbing. Some of the actors' mouth are not in sync with the dialogue spewed out. Who's at fault when this happens? Hmmm... Also, Aida Aris and Eizlan Yusof does not look like they could've been the parents of Liyana Jasmay. But then again, Liyana looks like a young girl, what with her being cute and petite.

And the resolving of the conflict? It's always the Ustaz right? I think Malay movies should step out of the religion comfort zone and try to think of imaginative ways to resolve the issues besides just relying on religion.

By the way, Senjakala had a nice touch with the whole Khalisa and Arman romance thingy. I mean, not at first. They had to resort to a musical montage to tell us that they are hanging out and the slo-mo scene to show that there was an attraction. But I saw what the scene was meant to be. It was meant to show that Khalisa felt the attraction of the inheritance or the saka, rather than of Arman. Look at her dead fiance for goodness sake! And then, at the end of the movie, she touched him again, before he left the room and she felt nothing. Or there was no slo-mo scene, so you know that it was the saka and not Arman. Nice one! :)