Merantau Review

In honor of my current location (the National Stage Combat Workshop), I will here review a movie that’s basically all about combat! Been wanting an Indonesian action flick? You got one!

Learn more about this movie, after the break.

Merantau, while decent, should not be viewed for its plot. It’s cliche and repetitive.

What you SHOULD watch it for, are the combat scenes. They are many, varied, and well choreographed.

A brief summary: Yuda must leave his village for the young man’s rite of passage known as “Merantau” when one finds oneself, etc. So he leaves and in the course of defending a girl, gets mixed up in the affairs of a nasty sex trafficker.

Yuda, the main character, has trained his whole life in a martial art called Silat. It’s, simply put, BOSS.

Whether with knives or with pipes, or unarmed, Yuda utterly wastes any and all who come after him. As a stage combat enthusiast, it was intense and incredibly fun to watch.

There are also some pretty awesome stunts.

Here’s a trailer for it:

Particularly that fight scene in the elevator was mind-blowing.

So, if you’re having one of those days when you just want to curl up and watch something random filled with awesome combat (cough Resident Evil cough), this is your movie. On Netflix streaming, now.

– JV out.