A ravishing movie - Sepet

For once , i did manage to be awake through the whole show. We were supposed to watch only the first VCD , but it was so enjoyable that we continued with CD2 . In fact , CSI New York was worse as i was trying to keep awake.

This show is about a Chinese boy from Ipoh who hawks illegal VCD ( but i watched on the original - with uncensored cuts ) and a Malay girl who fell in love. A daring move by the writter / producer - Yasmin Ahmad where he/she introduced a few controversial statements. And of course , the scene where Harith and Ogy? danced till his sarong fell down . That was terrible .. i saw Harith Iskandar in his briefs ? Oh.... nightmares!!

Anyway , firstly is the racial prejudices ..

" not all Chinese are liars , and not all Malays are lazy" . The malay girl countered " But you are wrong , all Malays are lazy " - this one got censored , but i think the statement was too strong.

" i never thought of going after Malay girls , but perhaps i have never considered" - so true , due to a insane law in Malaysia that forces non- Muslims to convert upon marriage - it has become a taboo to even consider them as mariageable choices. Not only that , cannot convert back .. till death . Even if just by name , it is a trophy to some . Of course, many are paid by the government just to rake up those trophies to be paraded around.

" I never thought that you guys can be so cultured " . Where Orked summarizes after knowing both Ah Loong ( Dragon ) can write poems and Ah Keong ( Siu Keong is lipas . haha ) can play better piano than her. Ok , so i have to respect the local VCD seller more. ;)

"johari .. he seemed to be a nice boy". Well , looks can be deceiving .... esp. from a racial standpoint. But i think the depiction of the party that they have can be true, though the parents may think otherwise.

Are Hang Tuah , Jebat , etc chinese ?

Anyway , some oddities

1. The sound is not too balanced. Sometimes , you can hear the crowd overpowering the main characters. And even among characters , some have lounder voices even though they are near to each other . No blame here ... but more technology may help.

2. One notable liguist commented on the mix usage of BM , Cantonese , Chinese , English , Hokkien by the leading Chinese character as a false depiction of the true picture. I can't see his point , but it is true that we can be as multilingual as the character. I am trying to understand Hakka now.

3. Romance like a flash .. too fast . Anyway , i don't think that any girl will hold hands so fast , lagi lagi a Malay girl who is sensibly more careful.

Overall , a good show with good humour thrown in .. and the use of expressions worked well. Perhaps a bit more time to build up the characters in the story. But cinematography is good and clear too. Support them to do well in the international movie festivals.

Kudos.