Mat Kilau: O Guerreiro da Malásia

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.

The storyline is very straightforward and thin, without much depth. It is about the exploitation of British colonisers, and how the people stand up to fight for their land.

The pacing is weak. It moves too fast from one scene to another (jumping scenes), making the story hard to breathe or digest at times.

There are plenty of action scenes. BUT they are mostly "repetitive", e.g. Fighting with the soldiers and the same "villain" again and again, making the actions flat. Perhaps a real super-villain shall be saved for the very END, so that audiences could be impressed by the REAL FIGHT! However, it's just made fights for the sake of fighting!

Besides, the camera movement is just too shaky that I give up on the action scenes, or rather feel uncomfy towards the action scenes (headache and dizzy). It's alright to have "shaky camera" technique at times, like some Hollywood movies, BUT NOT overdone throughout the entire movie from the beginning to the end.

The character development is seriously weak. There is NOTHING about Mat Kilau, other than he is a leader and good in silat. Also, we could hardly understand much about the characters of the FIVE 'brother fighters'. The emotional and sentimental value is just NOT there enough to touch anyone. As such, I could hardly feel anything, even though TWO of them died or anyone died in the movie.

There is a scene whereby the villagers (at last) came to defend the land and fight against the British. I supposed the director wanted to make an "Avengers Assemble" kind of goose-bump scene, BUT it failed badly. And perhaps due to budget constraints, everything just ended abruptly.

It leaves room for improvement in many aspects, as said above. Oh ya, it's kind of violent with slaughtering and bloody scenes, so pls beware if you were to bring children to the movie.

All the weaknesses have been mentioned here by other reviews. Screenwriting, jump cuts, camera works etc etc.

My main complaint is how SY ended his film. It just end abruptly, like TOO abrupt. I'm all for film that ended on cliffhanger but there's literally certain style and technique to leave an impact to the viewer not just fade to black just after nothing remarkable happened before that. When the credits kicks in I'm just like "That's it?". Poor way to end a film that supposed to be an historical epic.

I decided to give it a go and try watching this movie with my family...and i just don't understand why people making a fuss about this movie... first of all screenwriting can do better... should hire someone who is actually good in doing scriptwriting ... Shamsul Yusuf should just stick to directing... you don't need to show that you can do everything but the outcome is like those tv malay drama series.......

the transition between scenes is just mediocre... its like you watching a snippet of scenes and end up gluing it together... there is no continuity on the entire movie .... jumping all over here and there....

The shaky camera works should be less.. you should learn by watching from the experts like steven spielberg's "private ryan" or any from paul. Greengrass films...oh and the kicking and puching sound during the martial arts silat sequence should be more realistic...not some recycle sound from your old KL gangster film.... lousy sound.

Should hire a proper sound designer and a good foley artist....

oh and the set designer should do more proper study on the surroundings... for example there is a scene where the landscape is showing the people doing the. Gold panning and it shows the tent is all so clean and so white.... bear in mind that scenes is at a gold mining area with all the muds etc but yet the tent is so clean.... and even the villagers costume as well as the Mat kilau crew is using a well clean , iron straight from the boutique quality..... does not feel that the villagers are living in poverty.....

the ending scene is like you suddenly realize that you are running out of money and just simply cut short the film.. there is no proper ending/ summary to this film.... even the character of Captain Syers by Geoff Andre Feyaerts during the final retreat scene is not properly develop...should develop showing the frustration / or the vengeance feeling towards the rebels and showing his vows to come again if there is any plan to do a sequel.........

i left the cinema with WTF!!! Why people say it is an awesome movie... i have seen better malay films......

if there is a sequel shamsul yusof should and.studio kembara should do more proper study and not some so so film like this.

This movie is shallow, peppered with preachy scripts and cliches.

It needs a better writer... Character building is almost non-existent. The protagonist appeared out of nowhere, was thrown into a leadership role and started preaching about nationalism and religion. This is followed by a cliche drama where another character is envious of the chosen leader.

The preaching doesn't end there. It kept reminding you that the British were evil and tried to convince the viewers how important nationalism & religion were to them. This was done over and over again

This makes the protagonist one dimensional and they wasted such a good talent on this. Some of the minor characters have better development than the protagonist.

It needs breathing room... Some of the scenes jump around too fast, it seems as though they were rushing it in the editing room. Perhaps to include more preaching into the scenes?

Need some realism.... The costumes are inaccurate. Modern clothing and clothing items were used and its so obvious, it will throw historians & anthropologist into a fit.

The British soldiers are filled with entirely 'Punjabis'. Obviously, this wasn't the case in reality.

To create epic fight scenes, they have Yayan Ruhian. But it seems they wrote his character as an after thought.

Conclusion... If you don't care about good storytelling, character development, screenplay and accuracy, you will most likely like this movie.

If you appreciate good filmmaking and who goes to film festivals, you will want to skip this.