Merantau

Merantau is basically an Indonesian version of Ong-Bak, but worse. It’s slower paced and has far fewer action sequences, which are shorter and less interesting. It has a grim focus and just lacks the sense of fun of that movie. It’s the first collaboration between Welsh director Gareth Evans and Indonesian martial artist Iko Uwais, the duo who would later go on to give us absolutely amazing action classics ‘The Raid’ and ‘The Raid 2: Berandal’. In that respect, Merantau is just the rough, early groundwork for a director, filmmakers and actors who had never made an action movie before – they built on and improved on everything here to make The Raid as good as it is. Of course, that means that Merantau itself isn’t as good in comparison – the groundwork in terms of cinematography, editing, camerawork and choreography can be seen here, but it’s not to par with what would come later.

Young martial artist Yuda leaves his small Sumatran village to go on a journey into Jakarta as a right-of-passage (or ‘merantau’). He arrives in the bustling city with no money and no job prospects, and quickly finds himself homeless. Within hours of making it into Jakarta, Yuda ends up saving teenaged Astri and her little brother Ajit from human traffickers, gaining the ire of local sex trade mob boss Ratger. Yuda then makes it his mission to protect them from Ratger’s goons.

It really is a lot like Ong-Bak actually, especially in terms of plot and even specific action beats. In fact I’d just say that the movie is really just a more serious, inferior Indonesian version of Ong-Bak. The similarities are astounding; they both involve a young martial artist from the sticks heading into the sleazy big city and finding the dark underbelly. While Ong Bak draped its action and stunts in a pulpy tale about a crime boss stealing Buddha statues, Merantau goes darker, concerning itself with the underground sex trade.  Ong Bak had a similar sort of weird grimness hiding just under the surface (there’s that part where a girl is forced to OD on cocaine and dies), but Merantau goes so much darker. The movie doesn’t pull punches, particularly about the sex trade. The implications of a cotton-tip test are very uncomfortable. It’s a grim and unfair world out there, and Merantau makes sure its characters know this. Yuda has a much rougher time, getting the crap beaten out of him a fair bit, while Astri has a rough time in a different way.

A big part of the problem is the tone and pace. It’s really bleak all things considered, with its blunt focus on the sex trade. It has a very slow pace, with it really taking until the final twenty minutes for the action to really kick in. It focuses a lot on the villains, like the angry, sleazy Ratger and his second in command Luc, who have a really weird relationship (best friends who also happen to kidnap/rape girls for a living?), but these scenes don’t really do much to make them interesting, nor do they add much to the already thin plot. Yayan Ruhian, who played Mad Dog and Prakoso in The Raid and The Raid 2 respectively (and choreographed both films), appears here as Eric, a man who, like Yuda, had headed into Jakarta for his right-of-passage only to become a criminal. He’s meant to be the rough reflection of Yuda, something the movie only barely looks at or considers – it never questions or delves into Yuda’s determination to do the right thing.

The fight scenes are, for the most part, brief and a bit plain. It takes until the end for the film to really hit its stride with fast, brutal action choreography, but before then it’s nothing special. There are highlights, like a claustrophobic fight in an elevator and the finale at a shipping yard, but otherwise they’re fairly plain and short. The martial art on display this time is Pencak Silat, an Indonesian martial art, and it’s interesting to see in action, with a seemingly more free-form movement than other martial arts. White guys don’t really make for particularly interesting final bosses in Asian action flicks. They often don’t have the moves or the presence to be entertaining. They might be taller and more muscular, but in combat they’re just less interesting, often lacking the limber athleticism and flexibility of their Asian opponents. Ratger is no different – apart from being a head taller than Iko Uwais he’s just a white guy throwing punches and kicks, same with his second in command Luc. The final fight is good though, finally getting to that fast, brutal combat seen in The Raid, but it’s too late and too brief.

I actually wonder if I would have liked Merantau better if I hadn’t had seen Ong-Bak and The Raid first. While it is possible, I don’t think my opinion would have changed too much – the pace is fairly slow and the grim subject manner and bleak tone sucks a lot of the fun out of it. It does have a few good action beats, but compared to those other films it’s plain and disappointing. If it is one good thing that Merantau gives us, it’s that it lead to The Raid and The Raid 2 being made, both of which I’d heartily recommend, along with the first Ong-Bak, over Merantau.