Banglasia 2.0 Review : What Is The Point of Releasing This?

Well.. it's just that, I guess? I give credit to the film and Namewee for being so brave and I would consider this is the first local film that went all out for political satire - jokes about Najib, Rosmah, GE13 jokes, IC to immigrants jokes, Lynas etc. This film also had Namewee-style handprints all over it, and this film also was set in a fictional Malaysia, as Malaysia is being invaded by the Luk Luk army, and Atikah Suhaimie is running around in skimpy nurse outfit, which definitely is not the type that Malaysian nurses wear. But I'm not complaining. 

Nurse mode Atikah Suhaime

Banglasia was interesting as it was set in a fictional Malaysia and packed with political satire with a Bangladeshi worker as the protagonist, so we see the struggles and what the immigrants went through everyday, so that's interesting. But that was all Banglasia had to offer. It doesn't go any deeper than that, exploring carefully or in detail about the hardships and oppressions faced by the immigrants and foreign workers here. All we got was a stupid plot of a group of people running around with bunch of stupid, non-hitting punchlines during a supposed national invasion. I understand that it was a comedy movie, but it could still deliver a good story arc for the main Bangladeshi character while delivering the jokes at the same time. 

And here is the thing - even for it's comedy, the jokes were just meh and sometimes out of place. It felt like there were random moments of running gags for Namewee in the film and it shouldn't be there because this was a film and not one of his videos. Besides that, this film, despite taking place in Malaysia, I do not feel the elements of Malaysia-ness from it. Sure, it got a diverse cast, most of them were Chinese, and there were Malays - Atikah Suhaimie (again, in the best skimpy nurse outfit our local screens had braced) and Saiful Apek, and there was David Arumugam as well. But the jokes, the dialogues, and the settings didn't feel quite Malaysians. The interactions between characters felt disjointed and forced as the Chinese casts seem to be more interacting between themselves, engulfing in their own jokes and it got pretty awkward whenever Atikah intervened as she used Malay, while these other characters used Mandarin. Language barrier aside, the casts were not really interacting each other aside from their own race, that's what felt really weird about this movie. For an example: You have like 15 mins of running gags in Chinese language, relatable only to the Chinese audience - and then you have Atikah awkwardly intervened, in Malay, asking what to do next or something. It just felt very disjointed and the overall vibes of this film does not feel like it took place in Malaysia. When you make a film, political, regarding the concerns of all Malaysians, shouldn't your film be appealing and relatable to ALL Malaysians, and not only a certain quater or race?

Well, at least there's Atikah Suhaime

Still, Banglasia was a brave film and the 2.0 version was updated with added scenes related to what happened post GE14. I hope Namewee would continue his brave pursuits, and for more filmmakers like him to come out. But to be honest, there was nothing much about this movie that really needed for it to be released. There won't be any difference with it being kept in the LPF vault.

4/10