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Indonesian director Edwin is not an unfamiliar name in the festival circuit. His debut feature, “Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly” (2008), won several international awards. His second full-length movie “Postcards from the Zoo” (2021) marked the return of Indonesian cinema to the main competition after almost five decades of absence. His latest venture “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash”, which grabbed Golden Leopard at this year’s Locarno, however, differs significantly from his previous works. So far Edwin has romanced with art house dramas. “Vengeance…”, an adaptation of Booker-nominated novel by Eka Kurniawan’s (script’s co-author), as its batty title might suggest, swings to more commercial territories.

Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is Available now on Arrow and out on Blu-ray 19th Sept

Having set his story in the late 80s, Edwin re-visits the popular cinema of the era. He nods not only to Indonesian movies (with...

Indonesian director Edwin is not an unfamiliar name in the festival circuit. His debut feature, “Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly” (2008), won several international awards. His second full-length movie “Postcards from the Zoo” (2021) marked the return of Indonesian cinema to the main competition after almost five decades of absence. His latest venture “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash”, which grabbed Golden Leopard at this year’s Locarno, however, differs significantly from his previous works. So far Edwin has romanced with art house dramas. “Vengeance…”, an adaptation of Booker-nominated novel by Eka Kurniawan’s (script’s co-author), as its batty title might suggest, swings to more commercial territories.

“Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” is screening at Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

Having set his story in the late 80s, Edwin re-visits the popular cinema of the era. He nods not only to Indonesian movies (with a special place...

Above: Edwin. Photo ©Erieknjuragan.Opening on two motorcyclists playing a reckless game of chicken for petty cash in an unfashionable outskirt of Bandung in 1989, Indonesian writer-director Edwin’s sixth feature, the Golden Leopard-winning Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, is intent on challenging any and all expectations its punchy title might evoke from the very start. As the winner of the contest, rat-tailed protagonist Ajo Kawir (Marthino Lio), sets off on a victory lap, he passes a painted advertising board, which promptly comes alive and offers the audience a glimpse beneath the veneer of Ajo’s masculine swagger: “Only a man who can’t get it up can face death without fear.” Our hero, for all his readiness to take on multiple people in any kind of fight, is impotent. But this perceived sexual inadequacy is not the fatal flaw that will come to haunt Ajo on his hero’s journey.