Kabut Berduri

The plot outline given above is quite misleading. Sanja is a female cop with skeletons in her own closet. Her father is a high official. She is sent to the border area of Indonesia and Malaysia to investigate serial killings.

Sanja is immediately up against a commander who feels threatened, misgivings in the community and an apparent presence in the woods. However, the killing continues.

What Sanja discovers reaches far deeper than the decapitations and bizarre displays of heads and bodies.

The film is not flawless and the very last flashback is baffling, but I suppose that's its purpose.

Very entertaining.

Wim Vorster.

Borderless Fog: An Indonesian Noir serial killer film set on the border with Malaysia. It might well have fitted into Folk Horror as the ghost of a long dead freedom fighter is suspected by some as being responsible for the killings. Members of the Dayak ethnic minority on both sides of the border see him as their guardian. As so often happens, locals who campaign for autonomy, human rights and an end to land grabbing are smeared as communists. After a decapitated corpse is found it is soon discovered that the body and the head belong to different people, one of whom is an army officer. Sanja (Putri Marino) a detective from Jakarta is called in, she soon discovers that the local police are incompetent and corrupt. She also becomes aware of cross border human trafficking of girls, as the body count mounts; some of the deaths seem to be related to this. There is a parallel narrative where three girls are lost in the jungle when their trafficker is killed. The jungle is dark, eerie, this adds to the folk horror feel as do some of the many odd characters. Like so many Noir detectives, Sanja has her own past demons and this threatens to derail her investigation. Most of the violence and killing occurs off screen but there is enough gore here to disturb/satisfy serial killer film fans. Borderless Fog would have benefited from a 10 minute cut in its 112 minute running time and the ending is rather ambiguous with a sometimes confusing plot. It is worth watching though. Directed by Edwin from a screenplay by Edwin and Ifan Ismail. On Netflix. 7/10.

Borderless Fog is a detective film with an interesting story concept. Themes in this film include power, honesty, guilt and corruption. The story of this film has actually been used a lot, but what is contained in it is quite complex even though there are still shortcomings. This film presents quite a lot of scenes that are considered gruesome, and provides a tense sensation throughout the film. The mystery of who the real killer is is not revealed at all and is closed with an open ending. Unfortunately, there is too much mystery packed into this film, and it ends up being a bit of a mess. The characterization of Ipda Sanja's character here, like in most detective films, is always haunted by events in the past that make her job difficult. The cinematography doesn't feel cheap, the movement and angle shots help to build a tense and mysterious atmosphere. The tone of this film is also quite dark, but it also has a neo-noir vibe from the coloring. The music scoring is the same, with the right timing, it makes the vibes even more scary. Putri Marino's acting is really cool as her character, and the acting of the other actors is also really good. Overall, this is a quite exciting film even though it is a bit slowburn.

This Indonesian killer thriller is so disjointed it's almost incoherent. In fact the only thing that keeps this movie from being completely incomprehensible is that it adheres so closely to genre tropes that you can fill in most of the blanks with inferences from standard Scandi-Noir. A plucky lady cop with a dark secret gets assigned to track a rural serial killer with a local motive in the steaming jungles of ... whoah! Is that a Predator?!? Get to da choppa! Wait, sorry, false alarm. So anyway there's some expected procedural stuff, red herrings, and character revelations; and then in the final act the script goes way off formula, leading to a confused and confusing finale. Don't waste your time.

Borderless Fog is one of those movies that come and go. Though solid on some aspects, its convoluted story might miss the mark on delivering a compelling experience. Enjoyable if you like Cinema from less-than-mainstream venues, but average at most.

The premise of this story is interesting and worth exploring. A newly assigned woman detective is investigating a murder that happened at the border between Indonesia and Malaysia, in the Island of Brunei. The story promises Political conflicts, corruption, conspiracy, and mystery, thus captivating the audience.

Another nice element is the culture-heavy setting, which adds a drama element to the story. Seeing Indonesia-Malaysia, and Brunei, through the lens of the story adds an interesting backgorund to the whole plot.

The execution, though, is a mix-bag. As the story progresses, we see that most of the investigation elements are interrogations - accurate with how overall investigations go, and, in Brunei, maybe that's the extent of their Forensics, - but overall progression is a bit off. A few plot events happen by chance, which move the "investigation" further, but the story lacks that intelligent thinking the audience would want from the detectives.

That culminates in a complicated storyline, one that could force you to either read online what happened or, as a warning here, pay close attention to the dialogue - as one should. It is easy to miss important expository information, and, by the end, feel cheated. The ending, however, does leave things too unresolved, the ending scene perhaps a critical hint at how things work there.

Sanja, the main character, ends up with a flat development arc. Acceptable but unexplored potential. Putri Marino's acting, on the other hand, is quite alright.

Overall, Borderless Fog delivers a mixed crime and mystery experience through a convoluted plot arc. If you get it from the start, the movie gets a shiny star - if not, and you have the time to read through some blogs, adding to the payoff understanding, you should understand what this review entails: intelligent plot arc through a complicated execution. In the end, though it is an interesting story, it missed the point of what it tried to preach.