It’s another horror movie: “Congkak”

The film was certainly shot in Perlis. The first scene of the family driving to their holiday ‘house’ was the scene of the road beside the Timah Tasoh Dam (ohh, how proud I was!!). And at the end of the movie, they bypassed road signs showing Kaki Bukit and Padang Besar. Hehehehe.

  The film was about a family of 4 who, with the devil’s intervention, mistakenly made their way to a haunted house for their breakaway from the hustle and bustle of city life. I think if they were on the right track, they would have made it to their real holiday house instead of the haunted one (but that certainly will not make the movie). Kazman, the father really thought that it was the house he bought from a man about 1 year ago. Strangely, they never had any chance of visiting the house before or after they bought it. Maybe, they didn’t have the time coz you know how ‘busy’ city people are…. But if you think about it properly, why would a person buy a property at a place at the end of the world without ever try to have a look at it first. Strange isn’t it? Strange things happened even before they reach the house – Su, the mother was being disturbed by frightening dreams. As you would expect, those strange things multiplied as they prolonged their stay there until it reached its peak on their third night of the ‘holiday’. Ok, enough of the synopsis there.

 

  I think Ahmad Idham nearly managed to score another point in the making of horror movies in Malaysia. First of all, the casts are already good and manage to express their characters very well in most of the scenes, at least. These included the 2 girls who played the 2 daughters, and even the ghost herself. Secondly, the ghost in Congkak was better in term of its appearance – more frightening than the one in Jangan Pandang Belakang. It movements were also more natural unlike the motor-like movements of its predecessor. The film was filled with well-timed frightening sound effects, although I noticed the thunder-like sound was too frequent, as if it was going to rain, when there was no rain. The lighting was acceptable and night and dark scenes were ably seen by the viewers. Honestly, it was a horror movie that really frightens you! Kudos to Ahmad Idham!

 

  However, I still want to question its plots.

  Ok, they never been to the haunted house since the father bought it. But, why he didn’t call the seller when he was unable to locate the house. Yes, there was no phone signal when they got lost the first time, but he still can reconfirm the direction after he met the ‘lady’ (a ghost actually?) in the village who gave the wrong direction to them. Why didn’t he confront the seller (again by calling him) when he can even spent time drinking coffee with the villagers? Is their village too deep in the forest not to have any fixed line? I never notice the father’s phone was lost (as being written by a reviewer) and he actually was receiving a call from his phone at the end of the movie.

  How did the ‘congkak’ made way to earth from the sky kingdom. It was never explained. Did anyone (the lady who peeped the royalties playing congkak?) stole it? Why there was no ‘penunggu’ when the congkak was brought to earth? Why was the ‘congkak’ too special? If the site of the house was so special, what significant events that happened there long long time ago?

  I don’t understand why a responsible father did not move his family out when strange things start happening, especially after his daugter was possessed. I think the father should have mixed and talked to the villagers about the house and what was the family doing there when they went out for a walk in the village on their first day there instead of spending the whole day searching for ‘buah getah’ – people are playing ‘congkak’ with marbles nowadays, instead.

 

  I may have missed the crucial elements that might have made the plot clearer to me, but I think the storytelling can be further improved next time. Thank you, for a good horror movie. Now, at least I can forget how Noor Kumalasari acted in the 1980s horror movie ….. what was the title? I just wish that we will be still be playing the traditional congkak game even after finishing the movie. I have never heard that congkak is a game from some kingdom in the sky thing that was accidentally transferred to earth.

 

Impak Maksima: preliminary review

  I’ve been watching Impak Maksima for several episodes now. I’ve started watching it from the first episode, which I must say as not bad for a local drama. However, the progress of it doesn’t meet my expectation of the title. Slowly, but surely, it tends to direct the plot towards the love and relationship problems of its characters. It started with the love of Ayie-Eva, Johari-Nina then followed by secret admirer of Johari, but it looked to turn to worse when other characters were brought in.

  I’ve sincerely expecting a plot about technicality of cars’ modifications and upgrades with exceptional presentation of sublime drifting skills, and exposure of KL’s drifting and legal/illegal car races. It was shown in the initial stage of the show, but then sunk when the love plots began to take place. For instance, the technical aspect of cars upgrades/modifications, and even repair was only limited to some shoddy workshop scenes, and scenes of “wah, aku tak sangka enjin ko ni makin power!” etc etc. What the shit was that? They don’t even show the car’s bloody engine! The drifting/racing parts were confined to the same race tracks with a few limited ‘drifting’ manouvres and a banned illegal street race between Johari and Zul. This series is supposed to be about performance cars, but you can count how many cars are shown, and how many of them are really representation of good performance cars. I can say that 2 Beemers and 1 Mini Cooper was only shown and they were not impressive at all 

  As far as I’m concern, the drama revolves around hospital scene, college life, some kampung scene, and quarells near the workshop where Johari runs his business. Now, it’s going to another bad footing with Johari revealing his life’s past darkside of his relationship to Zul’s sister. Not to mention of the problems surrounding Amran’s inconsistent and disgraced behaviour – stealing bikes, having sex with bohsia, and also the roles of Kudin as the ‘evil’ in Amran’s life. Just don’t make me say about the troubles of Eva and Loyai ….. I’m really perplexed!!!

  On the bright side, most of the current local Malay dramas, including Impak Maksima, do promote nice, young, sexy girls as their selling points. It really nice watching these young chicks wagging their assets, with their immaculate soft skin being exposed by relatively inadequate clothing cover.

  I’m sure I’m gonna go on watching this series until the end because I want to finish what I has started, I already know the plots (however stupid they are), and I’m still hoping for a really good car’s related show. I wish I can watch Evolusi: KL Drift to quench my thirt for speed on screen. BTW, the 4th season of Initial D cartoon on tv3 had already finished 2 weeks ago. I’m hoping for another Initial D movie. It was really worthwhile watching it!

Jelatang: the final episode

 

I just finished watching the drama Jelatang on tv3 just now. We has been following it since the second quater of the show (when the girl, Suria started dating her own to-be step-father).

We thought the show should have ended earlier when the sinful relationship was discovered by Alima, her mother, and then expected it to end again when the culprits were finally discovered… but the producer and director may have other ideas.

   Lastly, it was shown that Suria was suffering from childhood-onset of schizophrenia with co-morbid depression and personality disorder (most likely split personality). But I’m really dissatisfied with how she was presented to be schizophrenic. Since the earlier episodes, she was shown to be a rebellious, demanded, high achiving girl etc etc etc. She was potrayed as having completed her secondary and tertiary education and managed to hold a stable job. She was also involved in love relationship. From my observation, she was able to maintain herself with frequent socializing and abnormallity seen was in term of emotionally lability, highly and easily irritable, sexually preoccupied with the step father.

   But the final episode revealed her as having delusion of ?love (there’s no such delusion of love by the way) and her relationship with her sick boyfriend, Zaid was merely her delusion, and she was shown to be hallucinating (talking to herself) at school, and she always like to keep to herself (in her own world). All of that did not fullfill the DSM-IV TR criteria for schizophrenia – even her delusion was not bizarre enough! Maybe she should be labelled as bipolar mood disorder because of her continous sexual fling and the labile moods. It was just at the end of the episode that she was shown to be paranoid to the ‘hero’, Ezal that was trying to help her. More so, schizophrenia patients do not just forgot who they are and whay had happened to them as they still have intact remote memory, at the most.

Unless the producer and director tried to potray that Suria (and to a lesser extent, her mother) was suffering from a severe level of schizophrenia – ?disorganized, ?paranoid, ?unclassified….. even that so, the presentation still could not convince me!

My advice to tv dramas:

-please make sure that what you guys are showing really make sense (especially medically-related problems) because we are not stupid, and even doctors watch your soap-operas