The thing about Syamsul is he's a visionary directory, talented but he clearly needs to focus more on the writing department or just get someone who's better at this.
Mat Kilau has its moment that you can truely feels its sheer epic scale and heightened your spirit of nationalism. The fight sequences were fairly good and really embodied the greatness of Silat. To summarize, Mat Kilau is fast, action packed and straightforward formulaic biography that able to cater most Malaysians taste.
Now the writing...
The script is just lackluster and have Syamsul's trademark all over it. It's very preachy and loud telling you "Get up and fight for your country and religion!". Is that bad? No, not at all. I understand the intention of sending some messages to the viewer (and it clearly worked). But the gripe of having this kind of script is that it makes the character seems unnatural and very one dimensional.
The pacing problem . It moves from scene to scene
way too fast that makes me lost the sense of time. And leaves the story unable to breath on its own. This is likely a screenplay issue than editing.
Mat Kilau, the titular role is very one dimensional and there isn't any interesting arcs to this character even though Adi Putra nails the character well enough. Even the character played by Beto Kusyairi has more depth to it.
Some side plots and minor characters are hugely underdeveloped that they suddenly appeared near the end of the film. I don't understand if Syamsul intended it to be a surprise or something but the outcome are meh without any of those build up.
Overall, its a decent watch. Good effort by the team. Go watch and support Mat Kilau at the theatres.
