Malaysia Film: Bunohan Film Analysis

Bunohan is a story of brotherhood and a kickboxing movie directed by Dain Said. In the story, 3 brothers are fighting for his father property and end up killing each other. 3 of this brothers has different identities, Adil is a kickboxer, Ilham a hired killer and Bakar a school teacher. 3 of them have different personalities and background; therefore the audience will discover the conflict between them is possible by the faults of their greedy and arrogant heart.

The story begins with Adil one of the brothers, was having kickboxing competition but losing in the competition. His friends drag him of from the stage and the promoter gets angry because he run away for the fight to death competition, therefore he hired Ilham to kill Adil which also Adil elder brother.  Both of them go back to their hometown, as Adil is running away for the killer and Ilham is hunting his brother, Adil. While, Bakar went back home also to help his father, Pok Eng. Bakar secretly want to take over his father property, a big piece of land under his father name to build a resort. Along the secret plan, Adil and Ilham find out they are stepbrother which lead the story to a more complicated stage.

Bunohan put pretty much focus on the masculinity of each 3 different characters and less female character appear in the film. Adil appearance is more likely to gangster and fierce but among the brothers, his heart was the softest and weakest. He was dissatisfies because he is constantly neglected and been bullied by his stepbrother and stepmother. His father gives him the heritage to overcome his hatred toward him and he accepts the heritage from his father.  He rejects Bakar deal to sell the land away, because of his father memories of his mother. In this moment, he show himself as a nostalgic person and warm hearted man who thinks about his father feeling. He rejects the deal of selling the land as he knows the place means a lot to Ilham, yet Ilham is trying to murder him.

Ilham is a very manly and cruel character which is a hired assassin. But Adil identity stops him and confuses him rather to complete his mission to kill his brother or deny his mission. Ilham is lonely and being alone for a long time that train him to be strong and tough. He is independent because of the background his has faced.

Bakar has the characteristic of a “silence killer” which play an important role of the story and also the character that twist the story to a surprise ending. Bakar character is the most peaceful and less violence appearance, however secretly he plans to kill all the brothers and also his father for the property. The dual faces of Bakar portray that people in the society nowadays are having two faces and the corruption of the society is scariest of all.

The father of this 3 brother, Pok Eng , a father that full of failure on manage his relationship with his beloved family. He also made a mistake to neglect his family members that need his care and love. However, his mistakes lead him and his family to deaths and his mistake is never be overcome as the brothers wounds and hatred are deeply implant in their heart.

3 of the brother show their differences and their masculinity image in the film. Bunohan successfully portray the egoistic and arrogant of a human that desperate for fame and wealth. Bunohan also reflect the dark side of the society by using the characters dark personalities and characteristics. Also, Bunohan film sequence caught the audience attention to follow the story of the 3 brothers by putting the ending on the beginning of the story. Interestingly, the complexity of the plot confuses the audiences but bring out the excitement to continue the story. While, audiences might start to think who will take over the heritage, the land and who is the big winner among the characters.   

Malaysia Film: Selubung Film Analysis

         

         Selubung directed by Datuk Paduka Shuhaimi Baba, a female director, which started a story about a bunch of students that study abroad in Perth. The story started with them watching some documentary about Palestine war. Each one of them chooses their paths after watching the incidents of wars. As the protagonists, Mastura came back to Malaysia and work as a volunteer in an organisation name as RESCAID. Her friend, E.J decided to quit her college and marry to an Islamic religious leader. Mastura has run the organisation well, while at the same time she met Kamal, her long time crush on an accident which made them fall in love with each other. Later on, Mastura faced a big tragic that almost took her life. In the end, she survived in the disaster and she had successfully completed her campaign of helping the victims of war.

Woman identities during the 90’s of Malaysia are captured in Selubung. Malaysian female muslins have difficulties to balance their values and identities during that period western culture are popular and influence the Malaysia society. The film has portrayed the situation by using 2 converse woman characters in the film to show the conflict between modern and traditional of Malaysian woman.  The first character is Mastura, her appearance and costumes are more modern compare to the traditional malay woman that wearing tudung and baju kurung. Her dressing is more stylish and more on the trend of 90’s fashion. Somehow, she still follows the traditional values as some shots she’s wearing baju kurung and hijab. Also, her choice to finish her study and work as a independent woman shows she break the traditional norm of woman should stay home and take care the family. She also manages to handle her career and love life with Kamal, her ability and status is much more important in the male dominated country on that period.

In contrast, the second character, E.J in Selubung plays the role as a traditional muslin woman. Her appearance and thoughts is more conservatism. She has less confidence and usually follows her husband, Brother Musa decision without any doubt. Even she is a good scholar in school, she decided to listens her leader to quit her studies in Perth and marry the leader for the preparation of her after life to embrace heaven.  She accepts the concept of polygamy as she became Brother Musa second wife. Her mind set on woman should be lower status than man and be obedient to marriage. After she lost her baby which Brother Musa first wife, Hani kill the baby, she lost hope and depress on life. Mastura help her overcome the tragic happened to her and gain her confidence back to continue her life in Malaysia. She find out that she’s misunderstood on Mastura has betray her Islamic identity as she saw her helping the victims in the Middle East and without changing her habits on the traditional custom. Also, she decided to forget her past and continue her life while she join Mastura organisation to help the victims in the Middle East.

The setting of the film has portrayed Malaysia is getting more modernise and capitalize. They choose to film Selubung in Kuala Lumpur which is a big city in Malaysia with much structure of buildings and westernise appearance of the citizens. For example, they use western instrument on the concert. On the other hand, they also film some flashback of Mastura childhood which her grandpa and the people in the village playing drums at Terengganu. Many traditional Malaysia culture involves in the shots at Terengganu such as traditional instruments, costumes and architectural and it shows the contrast and the differences of the modern city and traditional village. The director also uses butterfly as the symbol of hope and luck. At the last part of the movie, Mastura stays coma in the hospital because of the tragic happen, the shots of butterflies flying around her ward in the hospital shows us hopes and indicate the good sign of her overcome the injuries that almost took her life. After that, she wakes up and Kamal hold her hand lovely and led the film to a happy ending.

Selubung focus on feminise and Malaysian woman identity which the main idea to let the audience to recognize their identities and their abilities is equal to man abilities in the society. Mastura is a good example of representing the masculinity of woman and her independent bring her to success. E.J represents the traditional woman that is not courage enough to run her life by herself in the society which ruins her path on education and career. Malaysian woman need to stands out and be confidences to dreams without worries the traditional norms that limit them to gain their achievement in the society. Also, the film gives us a message to the audiences not to look down on woman abilities and strengths, thereby not to forget their religious beliefs and values.

  

Chungking Express

Chungking Express

Chungking Express is a French New Wave film that delivers the love story of four persons.  In the first story, cop 223 (Qiwu) broke up with his girlfriend, May on 1 April. His birthday is on 1 May so he decided to wait for her a month. Each day he will buy a can of pineapple that expires on 1 May. As days goes by, he feels that if their relationship are unable to move on, the relationship will be forever expired.  On the other hand, a mysterious woman with a blonde wig that wear raincoat and sunglasses every days and nights is surviving in the drugs underworld. On 1 May, Qiwu is seeking for love in a bar and he approaches the mysterious woman. The second story started with cop 663 has dumped by his ex-girlfriend. He meets a new girl in the snacks bar named as Faye. Faye fall in love with him, therefore she did something insane such as breaks in to his house and help him to clean his house. 663 caught her doing that and wanted to dates her as he is also interested on her. But, Faye didn’t come to the dates because she wants to discover her dreams in California.

Mostly, Hong Kong pictures are related with gangsters and cops that have some mafia kind of genres. Martial arts are also used a lot in the Hong Kong cinema. Somehow, Chungking Express directed by Wong Kar Wai has an outstanding style that presents romance and the daily lives of Hong Kong society around Hong Kong’s Chung King Mansions, the area of some shabby hostels, bar, club, and also the area that gather up many illegal immigrants.   

Hong Kong is a British colony from 1841 to 1997. Therefore, Western cultures have change and influence the culture of Hong Kong. In Chungking Express, the setting and location such as bar, club and fast food store are related with western culture. When Wu and blonde wig lady in the hotel with westernize interior, Wu ordered foods and eat it while he is watching Chinese classic movie, shown the mixture of culture. The character of blonde wig drug dealer, costume is similarly like the fashion in the 50’s of western where remind me of Marilyn Monroe , the American actress. Many English songs are used in the film and the multi-cultural aspects are emphasized by speaking many different languages in the film. The blonde wig lady speak English with the Indians drug smuggler and Wu speak multiple languages such as Japanese, English, Mandarin and Cantonese.  

Furthermore, the blonde wig lady which is a drug dealer are arranging drug trafficking with the Indians shows the dark side of Hong Kong where is some illegal activity happening. Human and drug trafficking is running around the area, this illegal immigrates are known as “cheap labor” where is hard to support the living expenses in Hong Kong, they are force to corrupt in drug trafficking due to their hardness on living in Hong Kong. On the other side, Faye snacks store has employed many Indian workers which shows us this foreign workers salary is lesser than the local workers. Also Faye cousin can’t find a local worker to work in front the counter so he hired Faye, show us now there are less local people willing to work in the lower position such as cleaner, kitchen staff and more.  In the film, they also show how the local communication and interact with the foreigner. Mostly they have to use English for communication and sometimes the foreign language is hard to understand by the local. As the blonde wig lady feels hardly to speak with them.

The loneliness and isolation may be the theme of the film. The characters are all insecure and confuse on their feeling. A lovesick cop, a lonely drug dealer, a heartbreak cop and a snack bar worker, four different characters are living in the big city in Hong Kong. The rush and busy city have lose the time of building friendships and bonds with each other. All of them are desire for love than lived. Both of the cops are still recover for their heart breaking relationship while they meet the two female characters. When Wu meet the blonde wig lady, he first question is “Do you like Pineapple?”, means he is still missing his ex-girlfriend and concern about the next girl have the characteristic of his ex- girlfriend. 663 talk with the non-living things and treat them like person have shown he have no one to talk with and integrating his sadness to all the non-living things. People are hard to express their feeling which they need to hide themselves.  Many monologues have used frequent in the film as to express all the lonely people run around to city. Wu hide his feeling, he refuse to cry so he would like to use his method to recover his sadness by jogging to sweat out all the tears. The blonde wig lady cover herself with a pair of sunglasses and rain coat, she feels afraid, insecure and conscious in the city. She feels harmful and threatens by the big crowd city. Faye is the opposite of the lady in blonde wig which is active, young and naïve. Her crazy idea of breaking in to 663 house has shown her naïve and cheeky personality. She hope and want to travel to California, but also miserable about her future.

There are shots I personally find it interesting that how there takes it in the film. When Wu and 663 talks about their ex-girlfriends in the snack store, they cover the screen and left a narrow space of themselves that show how insecure and narrow their feeling it. 

Chungking Express is a successful film to show the period of Hong Kong citizen feeling. British are going to let China to handover Hong Kong at the period of the film releasing , whereby Hong Kong citizens feels fear and insecure about the huge changes that will manipulate the whole Hong Kong. They are unable to find their identity and there is confusion of their identity.

Wong Kar Wai has successfully to portray the unique mixture of different culture in Hong Kong through Chungking Express. Chungking Express storyline are related to everyone feeling of love, dedication, worries and hope with an open ending that let the audiences to imagine and think about the destiny of each character. 

References:

http://www.wongfaye.org/cke1.htm

http://www.filmeducation.org/pdf/film/Chungking%20Express.pdf