Geran

This martial arts drama offers some novelty, in that Malaysian action films haven't been widely distributed on this side of the Pacific. Here we get plenty of intense, though mainly bloodless, fight sequences, but not much in the way of protagonists to care about. I should qualify the last half of that sentence - some of the character-defining exposition may have been lost in translation, or cultural transition.

Mat Arip (Fad Anuar) is such an unrepentant gambler and party animal that it's hard to care what happens to him as he continually burdens his peasant family to financial and physical harm from his debts. Fortunately, his mom, brother and sister are skilled enough at hand-to-hand combat that they keep their heads above water, and on their shoulders, longer than appearances would foretell. Meanwhile, Mat Arip stays amazingly stupid for way too long, incurring even greater debts, despite the lies and cheating from his bevy of creditors and their minions.

The film is quite watchable for its action sequences, even though the story falls short in fleshing out characters we understand and root for. The wastrel son puts everyone at risk time and again; the family readily accepts liability for his debts, and rallies to his rescue when he's done little to earn or reciprocate such loyalty. If you see it, stick around after the credits for a Marvel-style sequel teaser.

SILAT WARRIORS: DEED OF DEATH is a Malaysian throwback to the kind of movie that Tony Jaa was making in Thailand in the 2000s. It feels quite low budget and dated throughout, but the worst of it is the dearth of fight scenes in the first hour. We're stuck in a small scale plot involving a guy who's gone off the rails and the attempts of his family members to bring him to task. A lot of melodrama and boring dialogue make it all rather listless, but they do make up for this in the last half an hour with a wealth of satisfyingly hard-hitting fights. The choreography's not too bad here although the direction is distracting at times, such as unnecessarily swapping to black and white at key moments. Not a great film and I'm glad I caught it in Prime rather than paying for it.

Thank you for showing beautyful of Malaysia landscape maybe in Penang or Kedah,and art of Silat.

Full of action, good family value, sometimes funny and faith in Allah.

Most of the fight scenes look like they are counting to one second before each so-called blow. At times the defender is in the correct blocking position before the punch or kick is thrown. I won't even go into the horrible same-ole plot of street gangs and gritty looking crime bosses.

Unlike Ip Man and Ong Bak 2 where the fights are fluid and amazing, this garbage does not meet any standard.

Great movie with great fight scenes..Even the scripts were well crafted with local Kedah slang..truly bring out culture of Kedah here. Silat fighting should be continuously promoted as this is a special martial arts.