Film Silat Indonesia
Being that most things in your average action movie are impossible, including the dialogue, the genre is best measured by a film’s volume of oh shit moments—the ones that hit you broadside and demand to be rewound, gaped at, and keyboard smashed about. For examples: the first time Deadpool sliced a bullet in half; that time Captain America knocked out an entire S.H.I.E.L.D. Drop team in an elevator; the in John Wick; the hallway scene in the premiere season of Daredevil; and Atomic Blonde’s. Above all of these is Gareth Evans’s 2012 film The Raid: Redemption, which was essentially one long oh shit moment. The fistfights are deliriously long and exceptionally brutal, which elevated the film to its cult-classic status.
It’s been hailed on this very site as ”. Related Winner: White Boy Bobby Peters: So there’s this man named Bobby, who’s not white, but is “White Boy Bobby” nonetheless. Life has been inflicted on him.
Bobby might be in his mid-30s, or much older: He sweats constantly, has few teeth and even fewer faculties, and also has a prosthetic foot. Bobby, you quickly come to understand, is the friend for whom the rest in the group have long since stopped staging interventions. He’s a nuisance, and beyond help. EXCEPT, it turns out, Bobby doesn’t need any help. Bobby doesn’t need anything but his little pocket knife.
And Bobby is damn near unkillable. He survives wave after wave of hatchetmen and saves Ito’s girlfriend! Loser: Interpersonal Connection Peters: You know, Ito’s girlfriend—she’s centered in the first half hour of this movie. But I swear, I completely forgot she even existed until just now. Where is she? How is she doing?
Winner: Bottle Service Surrey: Imagine having the gall to shit-talk Iko Uwais in his finest Ryan Gosling–in– Only God Forgives apparel. Winner: Bovine Carcasses Surrey: Butcher shops are an elite action setting. You’ve got machetes and meat hooks and those things that saw off parts of animals down to the bone.
But The Night Comes for Us provides a first in the butcher shop brawl canon: death by cow femur, courtesy of Ito and a nameless thug. I will not GIF this; there have to be limits. But wow, his mind! We are only a few years away from a bludgeoning via raw rib eye. This is a golden age of cinema. Loser: Character Motivations Surrey: Even action movies often provide a why. Why is John Wick exterminating an entire Russian mob in John Wick?
They killed his dog and stole his muscle car (fair). Why is John Wick killing a metrosexual Italian man and his goons in John Wick: Chapter 2? That Italian man blew up his chic house (very fair). Why does anyone do anything in The Night Comes for Us? Who’s to say?
Character motivations are bypassed as the movie continuously moves from one chaotic action set piece to another—nightclubs, butcher shops, apartment complexes, factories, et. Al.—with absurd moments layered inside each other like a Russian nesting doll made entirely out of human entrails. I’m not saying we needed to know what was driving all the key players.
The Night Comes for Us knows exactly what it is. This exchange is the movie in miniature. Winner: Moral Relativism Peters: The Night turns on Ito’s decision to spare the little girl Reina, a decision that plays out as benevolent and empathetic and all those good and sugary things. LET US NOT FORGET that Ito had been playing the same role for the Triad for three years up to this point and had slaughtered an entire village of people immediately before he chose to spare her. Was she the only little girl in the village?
There weren’t other little girls in other villages? Winner: Shticks Surrey: If there is one universal law of The Night Comes for Us world, it’s the rule of shticks. You must have one to be elevated from an anonymous henchman into an elite fighter.
In the Triad corner, you have Alma and her evil yo-yo (basically a portable version of the ), Elena and her Kukri (a Nepalese machete, which is as dope as it sounds), and Arian—well, he doesn’t really have one, but he gets to be played by Iko Uwais, who might be the greatest modern action star. That’s kind of a shtick?
Meanwhile, our protagonists are White Boy Bobby (he has one foot and, because this movie is one giant, violent video game, has 100 HP and a full shield), the Operator (tactleneck, guile, and ), and Ito, who enters God Mode anytime he flashes his devious, I Was A Triad Executioner for Years Before I Got Sentimental grin. Shticks are good.
More movies should have them. Loser: Netflix’s Algorithm Surrey: The downside to Netflix’s quest for entertainment omnipotence is that titles get lost in the sheer volume of original programming available. In Netflix’s third quarter, the company produced a record-high (!) of original footage. So I get that you can’t promote every movie equally.
However, the algorithm needs some tweaking if the most unabashedly wild action flick this side of The Raid franchise isn’t targeting its potential audience. I am what you might call an action-movie enthusiast—I have the words tattooed across my torso—and if my own action-heavy viewing habits still didn’t yield a notification that The Night Comes for Us was ready to be freebased October 19, something went wrong.
Film Indonesia yang mengangkat kisah silat, terutama yang klasik, belum hadir lagi di layar lebar sejak industri film nasional bangkit lagi pada tahun 1998. Film-film silat Indonesia seperti itu seolah ikut mati suri. Padahal pada era 1970-an, film silat klasik cukup banyak diproduksi. Sebut saja, Si Buta dari Gua Hantu, Si Pitung, Si Ronda Macan Betawi, Si Bongkok, Pendekar Bambu Kuning, dan Pendekar Bukit Tengkorak. Tahun ini, Mira Lesmana, produser film laris Laskar Pelangi dan Sang Pemimpi, akan membangkitkannya kembali lewat film Pendekar Tongkat Emas. Ifa Isfansyah, yang sebelumnya menggarap film Garuda Di Dadaku dan Sang Penari, bakal duduk di kursi sutradara.
Adapun Riri Riza menjadi co-producer dalam film yang akan syuting awal April nanti di Sumba, Nusa Tenggara Timur. Syuting dijadwalkan akan memakan waktu tiga bulan.
'Setelah Gie, yang juga merupakan film Miles paling lama syutingnya, hampir tiga bulan, kini Pendekar Tongkat Emas juga akan syuting selama itu. Bujetnya sampai Rp 20 miliar. Itu baru biaya produksi, belum promosi,' ujar Mira Lesmana saat acara syukuran produksi film Pendekar Tongkat Emas di Bintaro Jaya Xchange Mall, Tangerang Selatan, pada 20 Maret lalu. Dengan biaya produksi sebesar itu, Pendekar Tongkat Emas otomatis menjadi film termahal Miles Films. Sebagai perbandingan, pembuatan film Gie sendiri menelan biaya sampai sekitar Rp 10 miliar. Ernest Prakasa, komedian yang menjadi pembawa acara syukuran pada Kamis minggu lalu, bertanya, apakah Mira Lesmana yakin Pendekar Tongkat Emas bisa laku? ' Bismillah,' ucap Mira, tersenyum.
Dan, karena biaya yang besar itu, Miles Films menggandeng Kompas Gramedia Studio untuk memproduksi film Pendekar Tongkat Emas. Lagi pula, Kompas Gramedia Studio juga ingin mengangkat kembali film silat klasik. 'Kami juga didukung oleh beberapa co-executive producer lain yang membantu pendanaan film ini,” ungkap Mira. Selain nama besar Mira Lesmana, Riri Riza dan Ifa Isfansyah, deretan nama aktor-aktris yang membintangi Pendekar Tongkat Emas juga berpotensi kuat untuk mendatangkan para penonton ke bioskop ketika film ini tayang pada Desember 2014. Mereka punya popularitas tinggi. Seperti, Nicholas Saputra, Eva Celia, Tara Basro, Slamet Rahardjo Djarot, sampai Darius Sinathrya. 'Film ini membutuhkan proses yang panjang.
Para aktor yang akan berperan di dalamnya sudah berlatih selama enam bulan untuk dapat menguasai berbagai teknik bela diri klasik, termasuk basic wushu, karena tongkat menjadi senjata utama,' ujar Riri Riza. Sutradara Gie dan ini juga mengakui bahwa pembuatan film Pendekar Tongkat Emas mempunyai tingkat kesulitan teknis yang tinggi. Karena kerumitan itu pula, Mira sengaja memendam keinginannya untuk membuat film silat klasik sejak delapan tahun lalu. Semuanya bermula dari kecintaan Mira sedari kecil terhadap komik-komik silat. Ia lalu tertantang untuk membuat film dengan tema silat klasik.
Pilem Silat Jiken
Maka sejak tahun 2006, Mira rajin mengumpulkan komik-komik silat bekas favoritnya untuk diadaptasi jadi film layar lebar. Memang, tahun 1970-an bukan hanya era di mana film-film silat menjamur. Kala itu, komik-komik yang bercerita tentang dunia silat juga bermunculan dan dibaca banyak orang. Antara lain, “Si Buta dari Goa Hantu” karya Ganes TH, “Djaka Sembung” karya Djair, “Panji Tengkorak” karya Hans Jaladara, “Pendekar Seruling Gembala” karya Henky, “Gina” karya Gerdi W.K., dan “Gundala Putra Petir” karya Harya Suryaminta.