Antara Dua Darjat by P. Ramlee

Antara Dua Darjat movie poster

Antara Dua Darjat is the first black and white Malay movie that I have ever watch in my life, honestly. I personally do not enjoy watching Malay movie because my Malay is really bad and I can't understand their style of movie. But, I think I did enjoy during the screening of Antara Dua Darjat by P. Ramlee. It is sweet, bitter kind of typical love story which often happens during the older days. Antara Dua Darjat is a Malay drama directed, written and starring by P. Ramlee during the 1960s. He is called as the silver-screen legend since then until today. 

P. Ramlee

I would like to touch a little bit on P. Ramlee's background. According to Zainal BMW (2012), P. Ramlee's real name is Teuku Zakaria Bin Teuku Nyak Puteh, he was born on the 22nd of March 1929 from Penang. He started his filming job in the 1960s I think? The first movie was "Si Tora Harimau Jadian" and the last was "Laksamana Do Re Mi". "Antara Dua Darjat" was one of his movie in 1960. He is also consider as the most famous actor, singer, composer, director, writer, and etc in the Malay celebrity industry. 

Ghazali & his friend

In Antara Dua Darjat, Ghazali (P. Ramlee) is a commoner local musician who plays the piano as a band. One raining day, Tengku Zaleha's (Saadiah) car is stuck on a muddy road. She calls Ghazali and his friends for help. She is from a higher class family. That's their first time meeting each other and they somehow fall in love with each other. That's call love at first sight I guess? This is also the funniest scene for me when Ghazali is trying to push the car, they somehow have some eye contact which is really funny. After awhile, Tengku Zaleha found out that Ghazali is a pianist and she invites him to perform during her birthday party. Then, they started dating each other. One day when Tengku Zaleha came home, her father tells her that she is not allow to go out without his permission to avoid her from mixing with the commoner (which is Ghazali and his friends). The only way to see Ghazali is to hire him as a piano teacher to teach her piano. Tengku Zaleha's father then invites him to their house. They slowly fall in love deeper and deeper as day past without letting her father to know. The loving scenes take place here and it is very touching and funny at the same time. 

Tengku Zaleha & Ghazali

The climax takes place when Tengku Zaleha's father realize that they both are in love. He got very angry and Ghazali got beaten up by some guys which is instructed by Tengku Zaleha's father. After all the hassle that they go through, they finally manage to get back together even though that's quite a long period. But still, they are finally together! I think the storyline is great, I would really recommend this to my friends. I should also watch the other movies by P. Ramlee. I rate this movie 9/10. 



References

Zainal, BMW 2012, Biography of Almarhum Tan Sri P. Ramlee, viewed 26 November 2013, <http://p-ramlee.com.my/Biography.php>.

New York, I Love You

New York, I Love You movie poster

New York, I Love You is a movie released in 2009; it s the second film of "Cities of Love" series. It is a romantic love stories by eleven directors (if i am not mistaken) showing eleven different stories in a movie. Each story is directed by different director from all over the world and each story is pretty short. Not to forget about the actors and actress, it is cast by Bradley Cooper, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, John Hurt, Chris Cooper, Rachel Billson, Christina Ricci, Shia LaBeouf, Anton Yelchin and many more. Talk about the movie poster, I think it is similar to "Valentines Day" movie poster, with the love shape in the middle filled with some pictures in it. 

Montage of some scenes

Even though this movie consists of eleven different short stories; telling people their different life, but there's one thing similar among all of the eleven stories; which is all about love and relationship. All these eleven short films are filmed in New York which is quoted as the most love story country. To be frank, I do not actually understand all of the eleven stories as it changes scenes very quickly without any subtitles. I find this movie quite confusing as it has many different stories combining it all together. 

Julie Christie on the left & Shia LaBeouf on the right

There's one particular story that I love the most which is cast by Shia LaBeouf as above picture. Although I do not really get what does that scene trying to tell. But, I just love the way he act in it. I love the setting of this scene, the background, the way they act, and everything! But one thing I do not understand, was Julie Christie imagining John Hurt was Shia LaBeouf or what? Julie Christie walks out to the window and look down, Shia is dead. Anyway, I still love this scene the most compare to the others. It may be because of Transformers which Shia LaBeouf acted in it, that's why I love it? I would rate this movie 7/10.   

Here's some pictures from New York, I Love You which I personally like it very much.

Touching

Olivia Thirlby

Unexpected movie star, Maggie Q

The Overture

"The Overture" movie poster

"The Overture" is a movie directed by Ittisoontorn Vichailak, wrote by Peerasak Saksiri, Dolkamol Sattatip from Thailand. The Overture is a movie based on the life of Luang Pradit Pairoh (Sorn Silapabanleng) the most revered traditional Thai music, the movie traces the life of Sorn, who picked up the ra-nad ek which is a Thai xylophones as a small child and played with all his life. At the local industry’s Subhannahongsa Film Awards, the historical musical drama won seven trophies. It is one of the movie that shows the character old and dying in the beginning and then flashes back to when he was young and how he got to where he is after that. During this time, the music of the ra-nad, among other classical Thai instruments, becomes suppressed and controlled by the government of Thailand and playing in public becomes illegal. One scene shows a piano being brought into the old music teacher’s place and there is a duet playing between the ra-nad and the piano.



When both of them are competing

I think If you are a musical person, you will definitely love this movie. Especially when the both of them are competing with their ra-nad ek. I personally feel that, not all music or instrument are easy to understand, I must say “The Overture” did a really good job to demonstrate the beauty of some Thai instrument.

The ra-nad

“The Overture” is the first Thai movie that I ever watched and the second was “Tong Yum Gong” which launched not long ago. Except for the language part that I did not really get very well, the rest are quite good. One thing I really respected was that the movie did not overdoes on the love factor, I felt that it kept it just right. I believe that this movie aims to bring about a new respect for the instrumental classical music, which Thai people would say, is a dying genre in Thailand. The acting skills for this movie is quite okay for Thai standards and the music is enchanting. The scenes where they play fast ra-nad songs are intense. I would say this movie is worth watching, especially to catch a glimpse of some of Siam’s heritage. I would rate this movie 6 out of 10.

Brave

 

BRAVE's Movie Poster

Brave is an animation and comedy movie directed and written by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman in 2010. Merida is a Scottish tomboy princess who make her own path in life. She defies a custom that brings chaos to her kingdom. In a remote Scottish kingdom, young princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is a headstrong tomboy who prefers pounding through the mist-shrouded forest on her giant Clydesdale and nothing arrows into targets than being ladylike. However, princess Merida’s life has to be depends on her both parents which are King Fergus (Billy Connolly) as her Father and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) as her Mother. She has to marry a lad from one of the three barely friendly clans which she refuses to do so. After Merida shows up all three of them at a contest to win her hand, the Princess and the Queen’s daughter-mother relationship explodes into open warfare

 

 



Princess Merida sees a blue-o-the-wisps 

I personally think that this movie standout among the rest of the animation movie because of the spell and legend haunted setting. During the night when Princess Merida has to meet all of the three clans, she ran away after an argument between the Queen Elinor and her. As she is riding on Clydesdale, she sees a blue will-o-the-wisps. It leads her to a cottage of a witch (Julie Walters) who offers her a spell to change her fate and her Mother, Queen Elinor. That’s when everything changes, Queen Elinor turns into a giant bear after consuming a slide of cake that Princess Merida brought back from the witch’s cottage. I personally like the part where they use zooming skills to chase Princess Merida when she runs away from home with her Clydesdale, it is amazing and it catches my attention the whole time. The climax of this movie takes place when Kind Fergus discovers that there's a giant bear in the 

When Queen Elinor turns into a giant bear

tapestry room. Queen Elinor who is losing control of her human self, attacks King Fergus. King Fergus thinks that the Queen was killed by Mor'du. With the help of her three brothers which have also eaten the enchanted cake and transformed into bear cubs, Princess Merida quickly sews up the tapestry and rides to her Father. The part is the best out of all and the excitement takes place. As Mor'du appears and attacks, Princess Merida fights off Mor'du and saves Queen Elinor. The touching part of the movie comes in when Princess Merida realizes that's the second sunrise and she suddenly realizes the true meaning of the witch's riddle and reconciles with her Mother, Queen Elinor. The Queen is then transformed back to human beings and the family is happily reunited. Just right before the ending, when the excitement comes in, slowly it turns into touching scenes where they reunited. Even though I am not into animation movie, but I think this is a great movie to watch because it makes me think of the importance of family especially in the scene where Princess Merida teaches her Mother, Queen Elinor to catch a fish by the river after she turned into a giant bear.

 

Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa tells the story of the title character, and how he came into his own kingdom, the Kingdom of Langkasuka. It started out with an anecdote, between the Chinese and the Romans went through India straight to Siam, Kedah, Langkasuka and then to Geruoda Island. It is told in the story form by one of his descendants.

Stephen Rahman Hughes

It is so far quite an enjoyable movie to watch but not really my type though. The movie feels more like a mixture of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Lord of the Rings”. But there are some tiny minute details of the movie that bothered me and brought the movie down a couple of pegs.

Stephen Rahman Hughes has the most on-screen role. He is nice looking and he has nice physique. The only thing that I dislike is his Malay delivery was quite bad, and he spoke Malay all the time. But he is my favourite actor in this movie though. I would rate Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa 6 out of 10.