Synopsis
A beautiful story of a group of kids from the village of Ujong Pasir come together to form a football team to compete in the St. James Cup against the British boys.
The underdog
A classic tale of the 'triumph of the underdog' which we always find easy to connect to. Like everytime we watch 'Karate Kid' and 'Rocky'. We are taken to their struggles to win over their opponents. In this there is always also a mentor who acts as a guide to take the protagonists through the struggle.
In this case it is Pak Saad (Nam Ron) who is a school garderner but have the will to fight even more than the headmaster. He refused to gather up a team to join the football tournament which has to go against the British boys. Pak Saad somehow is eager to do it this time (after seeing years of invitation being declined).
The kids have the typical background coming from that era. Syukri's and Guna's father works on the rubber estate as it is one of the main Imperialist commodities. Lee Meng's father runs a business in town. It is during the Malayan Emergency in 1952 where life is at the toughest. Yet boys are boys. They just want to play and Pak Saad's call to form a team is accepted.
Spoiler zone
Pak Saad and Cikgu Sulaiman (Pekin Ibrahim) together trained the team and both play the classic mentor figure to the boys. It is shown more when Pak Saad came in **Syukri'**s dream and asking him to get up and fight.
When the rain falls and the kids takes off their boots are one of the nice moment in the film. It symbolizes the Malays, Indians and Chinese set their barefeet on the same ground, get dirty, working together in the bad weather to be victorious against the opponent. How apt it is for this movie to be shown close to Hari Malaysia.
The shots are just gorgeous
Pak Saad is shown to be very fond of the Hibiscus or the Bunga Raya which is to be the National Flower of Malaysia. The symbolism here is showing we need to take care of the country together, water and fertilize it for it to bloom.
I love Din Tamam as **Syukri'**s father and Syukri himself played by Danial Akmal Fariz.
During training the boys gone through some difficulties and fought between them. Prakash Murugiah shows that everything can be solved without going into a fight. And if you are raged and need to let it go, walk to the corner and scream your anger away.
Go catch it in the cinemas!
Lovely SFX from ChainFX!
Selamat Hari Malaysia! #teammalaysia FTW!
