This WWII war epic has characters and timeline intertwined in a Malaysian movie unlike anything I’ve seen before (I havent seen that much tho).
Upon the first viewing I was taken for a ride to Paloh, Johor. British has been beaten and the Japanese had just committed ‘Sook Ching’, the massacre of 60,000 Chinese. Only months before the Japanese surrender (which no one see coming) Ahmad, Putih, Harun and others got stuck in the middle of the fight between two colonialist empires, the British and the Japanese.
Ariffin Nur, Hassan and Pak Amin is amongst the last Malay stronghold who will not bow to any colonialist.
Love stories between Ahmad and Siew Lan and between Putih and Fatimah spice things up tenfold. Even more, Ahmad and Putih are with the Malay Japanese Police, Siew Lan is a daughter of a Chinese Bintang Tiga operation chief and Fatimah is the daughter of Pak Ariffin who is a leftist nationalist.
It is when the Kuomintang pressured the Bintang Tiga in Paloh by suprise, and then the ensuing nocturnal counter-offensive by the Japanese, the conflict goes to its peak.
The Japanese surrender that follows open up a new chapter for all the characters, especially for the main protagonist, Ahmad. He engages on a new journey to reconnect and redeem himself with his lover Siew Lan.
The genius in writing here is where the past events playing parallel with the present events in a form of flashbacks. It took me multiple viewing to really link the spots and build the whole picture, at the end leaves me feeling accomplished, like completing a puzzle and looking at the whole picture. A revelation.
Its writing is unbiased in nature unlike any other ‘historically based’ film. Quotes by characters like Ariffin Nur, Hassan and Pak Amin will be deemed blasphemous to the present neo-colonialists.
Neo-colonialism that also feeds on ‘divide and conquer’, which is not far from what we see daily in the new realm of ‘social media’, where one is free to take shot at each other.
There’s no need for fly-bys to distribute propaganda leaflets now. Agendas served subtly through the glitter of your smartphones. Every little differences is celebrated and taken pride of just to further widen the gap.
Like Ah Meng said “Before British and Japanese came, Chinese and Malay never kill each other”.
The agreement to the colonialist’s conditions for ‘freedom’ is akin to a chain leash and a blindfold to adapt to their governance template, accelerated by the glitter of the almighty television.
Osman who uses his fluency in Mandarin to be a Japanese spy to the Bintang Tiga asks, “My father was a Chinese. My mother is a Malay. What does that make me?”
Life flashes infront of Ahmad’s eyes as he got shot by a Bintang Tiga soldier. He’s trained by the British as a police, then be a Japanese police and finally joins the Bintang Tiga to be with Siew Lan back in the jungle, just to be attacked by the returning British soldiers.
Use PALOH as a history syllabus in school? We can always dream.
In a middle of conflict between two colonial empires, Ariffin Nur gaze to the heavens asking for wisdom and strength.
I am wishing to get my hand on a remastered and director’s cut version of this gem. Amen!
Thanks for dropping by! #teammalaysia @teammalaysia
