In short: Gundala (2019)

An orphan learns that he has divinely inspired superpowers. Combined with the martial arts skills taught him by an older orphan during his worst times, this makes him prime superhero material. Eventually, reluctantly, the grown-up version of our orphan turns into the masked hero Gundala (Abimana Aryasata) to fight off a demonically (well, the Indonesian equivalent of demons, really) inspired rich man (Bront Palarae) with a very complicated mad rich villain plan, and his small army of orphan assassins. There’s also a subplot about ancient evil that only makes partial sense to the uninitiated like me, but is most probably in here to prepare the future of this superhero universe, as is the short appearance of Sri Asih (Pevita Pearce), who has her own prequel film following this.

Directed by the great Joko Anwar, this is the first entry into a proposed big Indonesian comic book based superhero universe, the Bumilangit Cinematic Universe. Because very little of this stuff has made it into languages I can understand, I really can’t say how this connects/compares to the comics. I always find it fascinating how standard super hero tropes are treated through a slightly different cultural lens (see also the riches of Filipino superhero movies of decades past, or Japanese tokusatsu cinema), and it certainly makes a very nice change from the Marvel and DC styles, even if you don’t understand every cultural nuance. And you’ll hardly get this movie’s class war aspect from Hollywood.

Of course, there’s so much here that’s universal to the subgenre – heroes being heroic and all - the film is still easily understood and related to even for an audience outside of Indonesia.

Anwar is of course a fine director, and I appreciate the film’s complicated sort of leftist touches, but I do think Gundala does spend a little too much time on our hero’s horrible misadventures as an orphan. Some of it has a pay-off later on, but I do prefer my origin stories generally a bit shorter unless the length is absolutely necessary. The pace is in general a bit more leisurely than it needs to be.

That our main villain’s plan only makes very little logical sense is no problem whatsoever in the context of this kind of project, of course, and Anwar (who also scripted with Harya Suraminata) uses the dubious logic to set up some fine and fun set pieces for Gundala to fight his way through. The fight and action choreography is generally fine, not quite as inspired as in some modern Indonesian action movies, but individual enough to be fun and have heft when the plot actually needs it.

Which certainly makes for a promising start for this particular universe.