Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Gundala Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 26, 2020

Fans of superhero movies who may frankly be more aware of such outings that emanate from the United States than from other countries, might have not one, but two, surprises coming if they decide to watch Gundala. The first of these is that Gundala is an Indonesian enterprise, one based on what is evidently a very popular comic book series there, a comic book which my hunch is relatively few Westerners have ever heard of, let alone read or even looked at. The second of these surprises is that Gundala is not the first adaptation of the comic book, and in fact a film called Gundala Putra Petir culled from the same source actually came out several decades ago in 1981. However, for those who aren't familiar with the Gundala franchise (for want of a better term), fear not: if you've heard of a little comic book called Batman and the films and television outings based on it, you might be okay, since Gundala has more than a few similarities with elements of the story of that iconic character. Cases in point?:

• Young boy traumatized by the murder of a parent, with the young boy later growing up to be a superhero? Check.


• Urban setting rife with corruption and lawlessness, desperately in need of a shadowy vigilante? Check.


• Horribly scarred villain with whom our hero has to do battle — repeatedly? Check and double check.

In what appears to be an at least somewhat fictionalized and criminalized Djarkata (as a newspaper seen in the film spells it), there’s some kind of labor uprising at hand at a huge industrial complex whose sole “product” seems to be the huge clouds of pollution its many smokestacks are belching into an already gray and dreary sky. A young boy whom we later find out is named Sancaka (Muzakki Ramdhan) watches an outbreak of violence between the workers and some militarized guards from a safe distance, a conflict which ends in a truce of sorts when the disembodied voice of the plant owner comes over a loudspeaker and asks to speak privately with two of the workers, but only if the rest of the rabble disperses. It turns out that one of the protestors is Sancaka’s father (Rio Dewanto), and a couple of days later when the two workers who disappeared into the industrial facility have stayed “disappeared”, the protest is back on, only more violently this time, leading to the shocking death of Sancaka’s father, more or less right in front of the little boy. It’s here that the film first depicts what seems to be some inherent “power” that Sancaka has to conduct electricity, or at least lightning, though he’s unable to really control it. Rather oddly, the film just segues from this first display of something to return to Sancaka’s home life, where within a short span of time his mother (Marissa Anita) leaves ostensibly on an overnight journey to find some work, only to never be heard from again.

An abandoned Sancaka tries to fend for himself on the mean streets of Djarkata, but he’s about to be mercilessly pummeled by a bunch of bullies when he’s unexpectedly saved by an older boy named Awang (Fariz Fadjar). Awang more or less takes Sancaka under his wing, giving him some lessons on self defense, but also urging him to keep his nose out of other people’s business, since being too concerned about folks can only lead to trouble. Soon enough, Awang also departs, albeit with Sancaka at least attempting to leave with him. A frankly weird interstitial moment involving a couple picking up Sancaka in their car and offering him refuge leads to Sancaka panicking and running (there’s another incident earlier in the film where Sancaka oddly refuses help from a neighbor trying to feed him), at which point the film simply segues without any further explanation into the grown up life of Sancaka (Abimana Aryasatya).

While he's at least made it to adulthood and is gainfully employed as a security guard, Sancaka still has the same fear of lightning he had as a child (and this Djarkata is very stormy most of the time). He also has to deal with the rampant street crime which surrounds him almost constantly. Ultimately he isn't able to avoid a conflict, which is when he's once again mercilessly pummeled, though a "helpful" (?) bolt of lightning seems to reinvigorate or perhaps completely resuscitate him, leading to his slow emergence as a putative superhero named Gundala. In the meantime, a whole subplot involving Indonesia's massively corrupt government has been playing out, one which involves another orphan (this film is stuffed to the gills with parentless children) named Pengkor (Bront Palarae), a badly disfigured mob boss who has put together a phalanx of murderous foundlings to keep the local politicos in check.

There are an almost insane number of subplots woven into this tale, and I'm not entirely sure that writer and director Joko Anwar's approach here is going to be clear enough for those previously unacquainted with Gundala. There's a quasi-romantic interest courtesy of a character named Wulan (Tara Basro), as well as a whole convoluted arc involving what might be thought of as Pengkor's attempts to unleash a generation of genetically altered kids without a moral compass on the unsuspecting people of Indonesia. A "vaccine" of sorts enters the fray, as does a noble politician named Bahri (Lukman Sari), who unsurprisingly allies himself with Gundala. This is another film whose entire (two hour) running time seems designed to simply get the film to its final few seconds, which provide an unabashed setup for a sequel. From a narrative standpoint, the film is a bit of a muddle, but Anwar's visual sense is almost always extremely acute, and may in fact remind many of Christopher Nolan's "darker" approach to the Batman character.

Gundala Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Gundala is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb isn't much help with technical data, though some of the "making of" featurettes listed below in the supplements section clearly show what looks like a full size Arri model. My hunch is this was finished at a 2K DI, but I haven't found anything authoritative in that regard (if anyone does have definitive information, private message me, and I'll happily update the review). This an often quite stylish and striking presentation, one that has clearly been tweaked to within an inch of its palette's life on several occasions, though commendably detail levels on very occasionally struggle to make it through the changes. Even in some nighttime material that is further affected by some yellow-brown or even orangish grading, fine detail on things like the grime on Sancaka's hands is nicely precise looking. Some of the CGI, including what I'm assuming is the rendering of the huge smog producing plant, can look relatively soft. This is another Well Go USA release with some tendencies toward banding, though thankfully in this instance more in terms of some production mastheads than the actual film.

Gundala Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While this release actually touts the inclusion of an English language track (in both DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0), due to what in my estimation is sometimes almost comical mismatches between mouth movements and sounds emanating from them, I'd recommend sticking with the original Indonesian track (also available in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0). The film has a rather interesting sound design, one which repeatedly makes use of storm effects, notably the crackling, buzzing sound of lightning, and explosive thunder. Sancaka is also afflicted by what is evidently a high frequency tone when he's near lightning, and something akin to that is also presented, albeit suitably tamped down for non-superhero ears. The film's urban setting also allows for regular placement of ambient environmental sounds throughout the presentation. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly and I noticed no issues with regard to any damage, distortion or dropouts.

Gundala Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes offers some short featurettes with quite a bit of candid footage:

  Part 01 (1080i; 4:57)

  
  

  Part 02 (1080i; 4:15)

  
  

  Part 03 (1080i; 5:04)

  
  

  Part 04 (1080i; 5:13)

• Production Vlogs

  #01 (1080i; 00:53)

  
  

  #02 (1080i; 00:54)

  
  

  #03 (1080i; 00:53)

• International Trailer (1080p; 2:04)


• U.S. Trailer (1080p; 1:33)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the supplements have been authored to follow one another automatically (so that clicking on Part 01 under Behind the Scenes is essentially a Play All button). After the U.S. Trailer for this film plays, the disc has been authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Gundala Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

You'll note that the tag line under the title on the cover of this release states "rise of a hero", and in that regard it may be worthwhile to point out that the "rise" part of the story takes a good three quarters of the running time, and even the "hero" part is not that prevalent in the final quarter. A dime will get you a dollar (or whatever the Indonesian equivalent is) that the expected sequel will have a "previously on. . ." recap of these events, and so some may simply want to wait for it to get a "Reader's Digest" version, especially since the plotting in this film may be both too dense and underdeveloped to always make sense to those without a firm grounding in the history of the title character. Technical merits are solid and the supplemental package enjoyable, for those considering a purchase.