Review - Sekali Lagi Pontianak

The title of this post seems to suggest that this is a review of some sort of Malay spoof movie... which it is not... it is a review of two movies as a result of last night's movie marathon at Pavilion.

This is quite a busy month for me, even though I still watch movies every week but my movie days are normally reserved for the high profile blockbusters of the summer and my friends definitely won't wanna watch Malay movies, especially these two... today I am going to see Harry Potter's final movie, so it was decided that I would watch Sekali Lagi at 6pm and then Tolong Awek Aku Pontianak at 9pm.

Sekali Lagi is a charming little movie starring three of the best working actors today, Lisa Surihani, Shaheizy Sam and Bront Palarae. It's about Arman (Shaheizy Sam), who is an adult but has the mind of a child. Autism. On his daily outings, he met Amy (Mia Sara Nasuha, who I suspect is Afdlin Shauki's daughter, but I could be wrong), and they hit it off really well, since they were about the same age mentally, but Amy is a bit more matured though.

Amy's mom, Shila (Lisa Surihani) is a single mother working in the city and is being helped by Bront Palarae's character, who is carrying a torch for her. Unfortunately, Shila was still badly scarred after being dumped by the love of her life and finding out she was pregnant with Amy at the same time.

The very first thing you see when the movie started is the labelling... this movie was said to be a romantic comedy... romantic comedy my ass... there was barely any laughing out loud scenes that would constitute a comedy... it is not even a dark comedy... it's actually a drama... a very emotional drama at that... I actually cried... haha... yup, nothing shameful in admitting it... lucky I was alone and there was barely anybody in the cinema...

Anyway, this is a very charming, emotional drama... and the storylines get peeled off one layer at a time... like an onion and each layer added quite a punch to the movie... and it's all tied up together pretty neatly... for a layman like me, I was pretty impressed with the level of storytelling here...

Acting-wise, this movie is rife with good actors... I am biased I admit but I love Lisa... she did a really good job here... so does Bront Palarae and Kartina Aziz... Shaheizy Sam is of course really good, hands down... the young actor in the movie is not bad as well, although there are times the dubbing failed her but mostly she did a good job, for someone that young...

Any movie that gets me crying is a good one...

After this movie, it's off to watch Tolong Awek Aku Pontianak... from director James Lee, who is increasingly becoming one of my favorite local directors. His first movie... or maybe the movie of his I saw was Histeria and it blew me away... Sini Ada Hantu was a good movie as well... so I was looking forward to seeing this one, even though the title really turned me off...

Tolong! Awek Aku Pontianak is about Bob who is a floormat/wallflower who just got dumped by his gold-digging girlfriend... he moves to a different house to have a fresh new start... and his neighbors are two girls who happens to be pontianaks... of course he falls for the older sister without knowing she is a supernatural entity...

But then Bob's boss tried stealing her from Bob and she revealed her true identity to him and he plots to save Bob from her, even though Bob is smitten with her... In a side plot, another supernatural entity is coming to KL because a bomoh type person is hot on her tail...

This movie is rife with pop culture reference... just about every single horror movie was referenced... from Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam to Zombi Kampung Pisang... although this movie is less funny than Sini Ada Hantu and less scary than Histeria...

Acting-wise, this movie is nice enough, even the cartoon-ish characters were handled well...

I've never been a Sazzy Falak fan but I enjoyed her performance in this movie. Liyana Jasmay supports nicely but she was rarely required to do anything much but pouts and stand around looking cute... Zahiril Adzim's second movie role (as far as I am concerned coz I've only seen him in one other movie, Senjakala) and he did a better job here. He played wallflower well with a bit of the charm and likeable aura thrown in.

The surprise for me in this movie is Nurul Wahab, the singer... she seemed natural at this... maybe I've missed her doing some movies, I don't know... but then again, she was not required to do much...

I do have one gripe though... the fight scenes were a bit wooden... would've loved seeing the pontianaks going at it with a showing of impressive powers or something... but you can totally see when they were fighting it was broad swipes at nothing...

Other than that, I had fun watching two good movies... I have read some reviews and my colleagues have told me stuff about both movies but I cleared my mind when watching... wanted to watch without prejudice or expectations... unfortunately, some stuff stuck to mind and I saw what they were talking about but with relatively low expectations, I watched both and thoroughly enjoyed the movies...

P/S - today is The Deathly Hallows Part 2 at Times Square *gurly shrieks*