Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Merantau Blu-ray Movie Review

Another southeast Asian copycat beat ‘em up.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater December 22, 2010

I would love it if I never had to watch another southeast Asian martial arts movie about some on-the-verge-of-manhood country bumpkin leaving his village only to get dragged into the seamy criminal underbelly of the big city. I know, I know, it’s generally accepted that story is inevitably going to take a backseat to ass-kicking action in these kinds of films, but do they all have to be so similar? It worked for 2003’s Ong-Bak, the Tony Jaa- starring Bangkok brawler that introduced the world to the elbow-dropping, bone-crushing spectacle of Muay Thai boxing, but many of the successive kung fu flicks from the region have been little more than carbon copies. One of the most derivative is Merantau, Indonesia’s diminishing echo of an answer to Ong-Bak and the country’s first real martial arts movie in some 15 years. Oddly enough, it’s written and directed by a Welshman, Gareth Evens, who had previously shot a documentary in Jakarta about silat, the martial art style featured in the film. While Merantau is definitely a showcase for silat—the bad guys do get trounced mercilessly—the fights are structured around a story that’s overblown, sentimental, and all-too-typical.

As anyone who’s ever read Joseph Cambell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces knows, there’s no older, more prolific myth than the archetypal story of a young man setting out on a literal and figurative journey to manhood. In the Minangkabau culture of Indonesia, we’re told in the opening voiceover, “there comes a day when every boy must leave his family behind and face the many challenges in life, challenges that will guide him toward being a man. This journey is known as merantau; it is the ultimate test of the physical and spiritual in which one uncovers a deeper understanding of the world. Nature becomes the teacher, showing the difference between right and wrong." You’d think from this description that a marentau would involve fasting and going into the jungle on some epic spirit quest, but no, our hero here, Yuda (Iko Uwais), a tomato-farming rube, is just moving to Jakarta with the hopes of becoming a silat instructor. His naïve dreams are promptly squashed when he arrives in the big city only to find that the house where he was supposed to stay has been torn down, forcing him to squat in a concrete tube on an abandoned construction site. Bummer. But he does get to use his silat skills, at least. The next morning, Yuda rescues a prostitute (Sisca Jessica) from a potential beatdown by her pimp (Alex Abbad), and inadvertently gets sucked into the violent world of Jakarta’s shady sex trafficking trade.

What follows is nearly two hours of street brawling—much too long for this kind of film—punctuated by terribly melodramatic scenes in which the main villain, a white European sex trafficker named Ratger (Mads Koudal), bickers with his minion Luc (choreographer Laurent Buson), picks out new prostitutes, and glowers at everything and everyone. Ratger and his underlings are all silat experts as well, conveniently, so there’s no shortage of hand-to-hand carnage. There are brawls in dingy alleyways and neon-lit strip clubs, on bridges, in parking garages, and atop laundry-strewn rooftops. You’ll see dudes getting bashed in the face with bar stools and pummeled with metal rods of all sizes. Blows land with concussive force and bones are broken frequently. The film’s most impressive stunt involves Yuda jabbing a baddie with a pole as the poor guys leaps from one roof to another, sending the guy tumbling to his death below. Martial arts film fans on the internet have enthusiastically posited Merantau as a worthy successor to Ong-Bak, and Iko Uwais as the next Tony Jaa, but I just don’t see it. Some of the fight scenes are impressive, sure, but they also feel overly staged, too carefully choreographed. You’ll also spot the telltale signs of occasional wire assistance. There’s nothing here that comes close to the awe-inducing frenetic energy of Tony Jaa’s debut.

What newcomer Iko Uwais shares with Jaa, however, is a complete lack of screen presence. Both martial artists can be a thrill to watch in motion, but they become utter blanks when the violence stops. Southeast Asia has yet to produce an action star with athletic and dramatic prowess. What makes this awkward for Merantau is that the film wants to touch our hearts just as much as it wants to kick our asses. In the absence of a meaningful story and actors with real chops, the maudlin emotions get tiring. Worse, it’s all played with seriousness and none of Ong-Bak’s off-the-wall humor. (Remember the villain with the electro-larynx?) The question, then, is whether hardcore action fans—who just want to see some fast as lightning kung-fu fighting—will be willing to sit through the overwrought and underwhelming story to get to the good stuff. Personally, I wouldn’t bother. Unless you’re in need of a desperate fix of martial arts action, and you’ve already exhausted all that southeast Asia has to offer, Merantau will probably be more of a chore than a thrill. Countless internet denizens seem completely gaga over the film though, so hey, I could be wrong.

Merantau Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Magnolia Home Entertainment brings Merantau to Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's probably fairly true to intent, but also looks garish and—there's really no kinder way to say this—cheap. The film was shot on high definition video, and from the looks of it, it was put through some heavy-handed color toning in post-production. Highlights are frequently blown out on bright colors—see the nighttime neons or the inflamed reds of the pimp's shirt in his first appearance—and skin tones have a tendency to look oversaturated. Black levels are adequately deep, but contrast—as you've probably gathered—often runs much too hot. Clarity is decidedly mixed. While there are moments when detail is comparatively refined, there are also entire scenes with murky delineation and soft, spongy textures. On the encode side of things, the presentation shows occasional signs of compression— banding in some color gradients, most notably—but nothing too distracting. Most of this disc's visual issues are purely aesthetic and have to do with the way the footage was shot and processed, but I think few would say the high definition image looks stunning or even pleasing.

Merantau Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As usual for its foreign language releases, Magnolia serves up two audio options. The disc defaults to an English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio dub, but let me steer you away from that track from the get-go. Like most dubs, this one is laughably bad, and worse, it makes the film's pacing seem slower than it actually is, as the voiceover actors read their lines with a dry, molasses-like cadence. More natural, of course, is the native Indonesian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, which may not be the most sonically action-packed track you've heard this year—far, far from it—but, considering the film's miniscule budget, is at least fairly clean and dynamic. The fight scenes are dominated by some of the most generic rock guitar riffing imaginable, but the music fills the rears and carries plenty of punch. Otherwise, the surround channels are only sparsely used for quiet ambience and the occasional smash-bang- pow effect. (The weirdest audio moment is when you hear some snotty-sounding tears behind you; turns out it's a little crying kid hiding behind a corrugated iron door.) Vocals aren't the cleanest to have ever been recorded, but there's no awkward muffling or crackling in the dialogue. Keep your expectations low and you won't be disappointed with this track.

Merantau Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes (SD, 19:05): Includes three scenes I'm presuming were once included in the longer premier cut of the film.
• Bloopers (SD, 2:42)
• Making of Merantau (SD, 18:07): A typical production documentary, with tons of on-set footage and interviews with just about everyone involved.
• Video Production Journal (SD, 54:07): If you want even more behind-the-scenes material, you've got it. To promote the film, the production team kept a running video journal of the shoot, posting periodic updates to the film's website. Here, we get all ten installments.
• The Bamboo Pole Stunt (SD, 1:22): In sequence, we see all 13 takes that were required to get the film's most memorable stunt just right.
• Storyboard to Screen: Fight Comparison (SD, 6:26): So, this one is mis-titled. What we actually see here is rehearsal footage with a picture-in-picture window displaying the scenes from the final film.
• International Promotional Reel (SD, 5:17): Essentially, a long trailer.
• International Trailer (SD, 2:55)
• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment Blu-ray (1080p, ): Includes trailers for Rubber, Monsters, and Down Terrace, along with a promo for HDNet.

Merantau Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If all you're looking for is martial arts madness—that is, empty action—Merantau has you covered. Just don't expect anything even close to an honest and engaging story. I couldn't get into the film at all, but it proved popular at Fantastic Fest and other smaller genre festivals last year, so you may want to venture a rental if you're a devourer of any and all martial arts movies that get released on Blu-ray.