That is going to be my curse sentence for a couple of weeks. *grin* That creative curse (lacks heat but it's too funny not to use it since I'm not a fan of those Japanese cartoons anyway), from our Malaysian-made Sumolah, was so funny that almost everyone laughed when Ramlee cursed Akira with it. Lowest common denominator to appeal to the masses. The movie in essence is about the spirit and principles of Sumo wrestling and applying it to a Malaysian context. Kinda reminds me of "Wax on. Wax off." Zona and I just got back from the premiere (she's the Line Producer) and even though it's LATE and I have to be in the office at 8.30am tomorrow, my mind is too active thinking about the movie, for me to sleep now anyway. *Spoilers ahead* Advance warning 'kay... so go watch it first if you don't want to know how it ends.
Sumolah is the 3RD Malaysian-made movie I've ever watched and 2ND that I've watched in a cinema. First was that very laughable Jangan Pandang Belakang, not for the movie was good, but because it was amateurish. Can't believe they made money out of it... I guess we all paid money out of curiousity. No second-watch value la. Come on the ghost was hanging off a crane and flying oh-so-convincingly scary. Riiightt.
Anyway, back to Sumolah. The starting was different and surprising. I like the fact that it was unconventional. Ramlee, being the despatch guy for an animal hospital which does animal organ transplants (LOL), was in charged of fetching donated animal organs on his sexy yellow motorcycle!!!! The movie does poke fun at some *ahem* questionable but true aspects of our Malaysian culture, shows that the creators and producers were not scared of making fun of themselves. Kudos on that!
Ramlee, played by our talented funnyman Afdlin Shauki, is a lazy fly-by-job man who keeps botching up his jobs and being fired for his mistakes. His mother, a security guard (again, unpredictable character casting, but then it serves no real purpose except maybe to show that our Malaysian women also boleh jadi Security Guard carrying nightsticks ready to whack people), despairs at her good-for-nothing son who by the way, is still staying at home and eating her noodles.
So anyway, our poor Ramlee has no job, no money and is starving. Now, amidst the grumbling growls of Ramlee's stomach, we see the occupants of Boleh Sushi, a sushi restaurant in Puchong, pulling their hair out because they lost a member of their Sumo wrestling team. Every year, the sushi restaurants send in teams to compete in the Malaysian ONLY, Annual Sumo wrestling competition. Boleh Sushi, owned and run by Mr. Honda (free publicity for Honda here!!!), his 2 workers who are also his sumo wrestlers and his pretty mixed-parentage daughter, Siti, played by Thai "Nang Nak" actress, Inthira Charoenpura. To be honest, I think the only real reason they used the name Honda because of the play on the name "Honda Siti" which is pretty hilarious! Again free publicity for Honda and Honda City. Hee hee.
Anyway, Honda-san saw Ramlee and wanted him as the 3rd member in his team so he tricked Ramlee into working for him by asking him to join his "Eat 20 plates of Sushi in One Minute" contest. Naturally, our starving Ramlee could not refused such "generousity". Unfortunately, he threw up the last bit of wasabe roll after the 61st second so he had to work off his debt of 20 plates of sushi.
Anyway, long story short, our Ramlee then became a Sumo wrestler after overcoming his shyness of flaunting his half naked body in from of our friendly Cik Honda Siti. His protagonist is of course Akira, played by Gurmit Singh, who is a rival for Siti's affection. No guessing who gets the girl in the end la. Akira's over-highlighted-Dragonball hair pokes fun at the Japanese culture and with the sporty Nissan car with sky light... Funny! The way Gurmit portrayed the arrogant Dragonball-wannabe Akira was damn funny. The long strides, the colourful John Travolta suits and the slinging and whipping of the jacket over the shoulder thingie... tsk tsk. I didn't realise they were poking fun at Japanese cultures and their penchant for Cosplay until the end of the movie with a particular scene of Akira storming into Boleh Sushi with wind effect, horrid-looking kicks (sneakers) and wrap-around sunglasses and all. But as a Sumo wrestler, Gurmit's body... tak boleh la... but then I didn't know he had muscles either so not too bad looking as well.
Speaking of not-too-bad-looking bodies... Gavin Yap's character Mickey was what we can only call "care-le-fair" (again serves no purpose but to throw in creativeness I guess). Mickey, a psychotic sumo wrestler in Akira's team, sports an impressive Mohawk and Mike Tyson Complex with kohled eyes, gets to mouths off cheesy lines like "Is it strange that I enjoyed that?" when pinched / pushed aside by Akira. Compared to the rest of the Sumo wrestlers, Mickey is scrawny. Well, all except Radhi Khalid, who plays Andy who has a son named after a toad, whom is even scrawnier with his ribs sticking out. But even after taking bruising kicks to the stomach from Hassan, our Andy still managed to throw a few guys, twice his size, out of the dohyo.
Oh oh oh... at this point I must point out that our Malaysian sumo wrestlers wears tights with their loincloth! I'm sure you've seen it in the trailers. Malaysians will still be Malaysian la. Good for them! Haha. I don't think anyone's gonna pay money to see Afdlin's butt cheeks quake with each big stomp. So good call. But then maybe people might just.... *grin*
To train our unlikely heroes better, Honda-san flew them to Fukuako, Japan to train with REAL Sumo wrestlers. My god, there was a scene with real wrestling bouts, and the meeting two of two gargantuan shoulders sounded like the crack of rams butting their buttresses together. Then there was a scene showing the Sumo wrestling practicing ramming his shoulders into a log... owww.
In the end, Ramlee and Akira faced off in the dohyo in the final round. Both fought valiantly and hard and both fell at the same time. But the judges ruled that Akira won. Ok, so our hero lost and went back without a trophy. No happy ending there.
Next day, Akira comes by Boleh Sushi, accompanied by a whirlwind, not to gloat but to apologise for cheating team mate Hassan for bashing up poor Andy and telling Mickey to punch Andy's sore ribs during the competition which gave the rival team the edge to win that round. Akira offers to forfeit his trophy and prize money. Not bad.
Ramlee declines of course, product of good Asian parenting, and offers to beat him next year instead. Anyway, the ending.... with shots of happy faces looking up into the Nokotta sign, a gift from Akira's father and coach... reminded me of a Celcom ad (or was it Telekom). Sappy happy ending. But then I don't know how else to end it either.
I guess what I like about this movie is that it was unpredictable, looks like a proper movie, good scenes like sunset shots with our heroes silhouettes practicing moves and Honda-san following with an umbrella at the back despite it being sunset and thus no hot sun, and poking fun of certain things (the pokemon dragonball aspects), and of course some clever scene planning like the scene where our heroes are practicing toughening up their limbs by hitting them against the coconut tress at Putrajaya, the director put 2 coconuts at Haris' (played by Awie) feet, 1 coconut at Andy's feet and non at Ramlee's feet, to indicate the level of strength and skills they had at that moment. Damn cute.
My advice to you, GO WATCH IT, and see that Malaysia indeed Boleh in the movie industry.
