Merauntau was a simpler story compared to our previous film. The film was definitely more American than the Metro Manila movie. I personally found this movie quite interesting with all of the fight scenes, and the shocking ending. However, the film still contrasts in many ways to the common American film. Merantau is an action packed movie that captures the adventure that occurs during Yuda's Merantau (rite of passage or pilgrimage to becoming a man). Yuda travels to Jakarta to try to create a home for himself. He started by teaching silat (an Indonesian martial art) to the children of Jakarta. Yuda befriended a young boy named Addit and his sister, Astri. The latter of whom is picked up by gangsters to be part of a sex trafficking ring, and thus begins his discovery of his destiny and called the unofficial protector against the meek and weak. Yuda's misfortune of running up against the human smuggling ring was his meeting Ratger. If I were directing the film it would have had a different ending. Yuda would have definitely not let Ratger live. I would have made sure he was dead before moving on to rescue the girls. Then I would try to get a hold of the police to deal with any others who were still alive. This is a really well done movie, and is quite different than what I would have expected had it been done in the "American" type of movie, including tons of explosions, major firearm battles, and a perfectly happy ending.The impact the film Merantau had on my global perspective is definitely due to the amount of facts within the film. I have become more aware of the many privileges we have in America. I would strongly recommend the film Merantua to another student or teacher.

Merantau was unlike anything that I have ever seen before. The pencak silat martial arts were really cool to watch. Prior to viewing this film, I had never heard of this type of martial arts. I really liked the main character, Yuda. He seemed like a really good person who just wanted to help Astri and her little brother Adit. While he didn't have much to give himself, he used his skills in pencak silat to protect them from harm. The whole movie was very intense with some fairly graphic fighting scenes. I have gotten more used to these type of disturbing scenes through all the foreign films that I have been watching recently; however, it is definitely still hard to witness. The ending of this movie was bittersweet which is a bit different from most American films since they tend to end rather happily the majority of the time. Overall, I would give this film four out of five stars.

A boy named Yuda goes on an Indonesian traditional journey, called Merantau. He goes to a city, to go on his journey, trying to practice a martial arts style called silat. He finds a girl named Astri and a boy named Adit, who are siblings. Adit takes Yuda's wallet and tries to evade him, but Yuda eventually catches him in an alley. This is where Yuda first finds Astri. Astri is being whored out by a pimp, who is being ruled by a higher European pimp. Yuda beats up the pimp, freeing Astri from his confines. When Astri is kidnapped, Yuda goes on a mission, fighting bad guys to rescue her. There is a large human trafficking ring, that is being lead by the 2 Europeans, which Yuda takes down. When Yuda finally takes out all the human traffickers, the European stabs him with a metal pole, killing him. Astri wants to save him, but it is too far gone. Yuda gives Astri a necklace and tells her to take it to his family. Then Astri goes to Yuda's hometown, where she lives with Yuda's family with Adit.This film was a very cheesy, Asian, martial arts film. The plot was very tacky, deriving back to a warrior saving the princess. Without a happy ending, the only good parts about this film were the funny fight scenes, with bad sound effects and ragdolls. Another enjoyable part about this movie were the poor lip syncing, especially on Astri.

Minangkabau silat practitioner Yuda (Iko Uwais) leaves home for Jakarta (as part of his 'merantau', his journey into adulthood) where he finds his martial arts expertise coming in very handy after rescuing pretty dancer Astri from a human trafficking gang headed by evil Westerner Ratger (Mads Koudal).Merantau was the first film to team Indonesian Silat superstar Iko Uwais with Welsh director Gareth Evans, who, together, would go on to make two of the finest martial arts movies ever made: The Raid: Redemption (2011) and The Raid 2: Berendal (2014). Although not quite as completely astonishing or groundbreaking as either of those films, being a little too similar in style to Prachya Pinkaew's hit movies Ong Bak (2003), The Warrior King (2005), and Chocolate (2008), Merantau is still a very impressive effort, establishing Uwais as a charismatic and extremely athletic fighter and Evans as a force to be reckoned with behind the camera. The adrenaline pumping action features some very impressive stuntwork, lots of brutal hand to hand combat, and an extremely bloody shooting inside an elevator.Predictable plot aside, my only other issues with Merantau are a few unconvincing falls that look as though cables were used to slow down the stuntman, and the frustrating ending, which sees our hero paying the price for stupidly failing to finish off the bad guy.