After spending more than a week's holiday with my wife, we were trying to catch up with movies that we were not able to see for a while. Hence, yesterday during a public holiday, we managed to have a movie marathon and saw this one as our second movie of the day. It had been playing quite some time and fortunately the film was still playing in Indonesian cinemas. So let us go on with the movies now.
Brief Story Line
Wiro Sableng (Vino G. Bastian - Warkop DKI Reborn: Jangkrik Boss Part 1 & its sequel, Chrisye etc) was saved & taught martial arts by his teacher Sinto Gendeng (Ruth Marini - Sebelum Iblis Menjemput etc) since his childhood. When he had grown up, Wiro was told by Sinto to look for and capture the leader of the dark forces and her former student named Mahesa Birawa (Yayan Ruhian - Beyond Skyline, Star Wars: The Force Awakens etc).
During his journey, he would befriend with a lady warrior named Anggini (Sherina Munaf - Petualangan Sherina etc) and Bujang Gila Tapak Sakti (Fariz Alfarizi). Wiro was also entangled with the political turmoil that involved the king Raja Kamandaka (Dwi Sasono - DOA (Doyok-Otoy-Ali Oncom): Cari Jodoh, Mendadak Dangdut etc), king's sister Raramurni (Aghniny Haque) and the rebels who were trying to overthrow the government.
Could Wiro complete his special task? And could he become the best warrior as expected by his master Sinto Gendeng? Find them all in this quite hilarious entertaining martial arts movie.
End of Brief Story Line
I had found out the intention of making a movie about one of the famous, quite iconic & popular novel hero, Wiro Sableng since more than a year ago. And I noticed that the movie was going to be collaboration with Fox International Production (20th Century Fox) which should translate to a good quality Indonesian movie. So I was pretty excited and looking forward to seeing this one when it's ready. After seeing the movie myself, I was really satisfied and felt it truly justified all the hypes.
I believed that this movie was a good adaptation of the novel and the performance of Vino G. Bastian as the lead character was quite spot on. He was able to portray the rather crazy & always fooling around Wiro just like I would have pictured of him. I bet being the son of the original series writer & creator, the late Bastian Tito, would probably made him more than capable of portraying Wiro. Not to mention that Vino managed to perform many of the fight sequences and he did not look out of place when fighting against the more established martial arts actor like Yayan Ruhian.
Another person whom I thought was convincing was Ruth Marini as the "screwy" Sinto, Wiro's teacher. I thought she really looked like such character. I also quite enjoyed the performance of Fariz Alfarizi whom I thought was funny and of course Dwi Sasono who seemed very commanding and suit the role of a king (this was a total opposite of his goofball character Ali Oncom in his latest comedy movie DOA: Cari Jodoh). There were also quite a number of well known actors/actresses in supporting roles, such as Lukman Sardi, Marsha Timothy, Happy Salma, Marcella Zalianty, Cecep Arif Rahman even singers like Andy /rif and Marcell Siahaan.
Apart from the good characterizations, I noticed that the fight scenes were all done very well. They seemed to be done by real professionals. Furthermore the special effects to my personal opinion was amazing. They really seemed real and would make all Indonesians proud of seeing Indonesian movie having such special effects that was at par with Hollywood movies. And finally the sound effects were also wonderful. Although I think the background music sometimes were too loud, making it unclear listening to some of the conversations (not sure if the problem was from the movie or the cinema).
There were quite a lot of scenes that were funny. My most favorite ones would have to be those involving Wiro with Raramurni, and Wiro with Bujang Gila. All the fight scenes as I said earlier were also amazing and my most favorite one would be during the finale. However, I thought that the climax was a bit disappointing as it felt "too easy". Although to be fair, it might have been to provide the moral message of the "212" meaning.
Overall this was a good novel adaptation with plenty of funny moments and great fight sequences worthy of having the huge budget attached to it. Personally I also thought that despite a TV series had been made some years ago, I still love the movie better, simply because I think Vino looked more like the character and there were quite a lot of characters from the novels that were shown in this film. My wife was also very appreciative and thought that the film exceeded her personal expectation. I understand due to its success, a sequel to the movie would be made which we both definitely would love to see. The mid end-credit scene certainly hinted that and it was something that would surely make the novel fans excited. So if you have not seen the movie like I did till yesterday, I would recommend to see this in the cinema. It is still playing in quite a number of theaters.
Happy watching!
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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