CinemaShafiq

  Stupid, contrived and messy. A film about the hardships faced by modern day women is a good premise for a film, but the executions that this film did was just plain and cringe-ly bad. Forced characterisations, and the expected simple generalisation of males in this universe. A film in which the central theme of its story is the hardship of the daily lives faced by it's main character(s) is akin alike Roma , Hidden Figures or even as back as Spielberg's 1985's  The Color Purple - and big budget or star power was not the strength of these films, but their good writing. And that is definitely what this film lack.  4/10

  Good effort for a directorial debut by Hairul Azreen and his team. Technically, the film was excellent, it had good cinematography and the scores were on point. But it got a lot of flaws especially on actings, and the story itself.  Zahiril Adzim's acting carried the whole movie by himself while the acting by other actors were either weak or non-existent. The plot and the twist may be "smart" for a local film but it actually has been done a lot of times and not groundbreaking really. Still, it's a watchable film and you can watch it on Disney+ Hotstar in Malaysia. 4/10

  A well-crafted, well-performed, and well- directed film. Another entry of a good landmark film for local cinema. Namron and Amerul Affendi brought their masterclass performance in this film, and this duo cannot be anymore better.  The film felt like a well-directed stage play, geared by strong script and performances, with some bits of satire/dark humor throughout on love, relationship and social criticism. I like that some of the satirical or dark humor bits felt like something out of a Coen brothers' film. The 4 years wait for the film to be released is worth it, it's like savoring a damn good wine and Mencari Rahmat is probably the best local film to come out this year, and definitely one of the best to come out in recent years. 7/10 

  Garbage. This film was just a clear cut copy and paste remake of the famous cult classic 2002 straight-to-VCD Momok. M Jamil must be thinking too highly of himself and his telemovie that he thinks people would highly anticipate and really love to see each scenes, one by one, being remade. Making Faizal AF4 who cannot act as the main cast definitely didn't help this film. Nabil was hyped on the poster but he was in for like 10 mins. Better watch the old VCD one. 3/10 

A brave Malaysian political thriller but can do so much much more. It had a strong premise; basically a story of political maneuver after a big conservative party lost a GE. Sounds familiar huh? *winks However sadly, I think the film did not deliver very well. The film started with the introduction of the political titans & their plans to retain their positions. One party wishes to form an alliance with an Islamist party to make a comeback, and another leader, DS Anw-ehem I mean Ali, is trying to ensure that the current PM, Tun Maha- I mean Malik, is going to hand him over the PM-ship. Now all premises were set nicely. And we're gonna see these players play their game, right? Sadly, we didn't really got that.  Surely Mahsuri, Vanidah's character played her game well, and Tony Eusoff's character, but overall it is not truly Machiavellian enough like it's being promoted & not all characters engage in the game as they should be. Tun Malik and DS Ali

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 oppre

As a movie lover as well as someone who is really invested in Malaysia's political scene, I think the existence of this film itself is an accomplishment. The story of 9 May 2018 indeed, should be made into a film. With that being said, this film was good, but it could've been better. The six-story narrative may need to be revised or cut to less than six, and it can be felt that this film was rushed as the script itself felt like assemble of events happening in Malaysia, before and during the GE14.  I am a lover of historical and biography films, but it irks me a bit when a film that had a potential to be great turnt out to be only subpar, especially coming from Nik Amir Mustapha (whom directed KIL , a local film that I really love) and Saw Teong Hin (who directed Puteri Gunung Ledang ).  The story(ies?) were messy and the overall production of this film just felt rushed. They should've take their time to develop and produce this movie, Pakatan Harapan is going to

Paskal was a very good Malaysian film. I think this is the first REAL local action film, like real action. No CGI explosion or any cringy action stuffs. It was also the most accurate local movie in presenting the technicalities and true SOP of our Malaysian military. So no more cringy stuffs like "Tuan, orang jahat kat sana tuan!" or anything resembling like that coming from Gerak Khas or Roda-roda KL. It also has a strong patriotic message and really shows just how cool our military, specifically, our navy, really is. Though I think there are some cons. There were too many expositions and I think it was better if the main lead was not Hairul Azreen. Dude can act but he's just not hardcore enough for the main role. OH and this movie introduced me to Jasmine Suraya who is such a delight so there's that. Hi Jasmine    7/10

Malay movies are mostly trash in my book.. but this is the ultimate trash, and that's the only good merit of this garbage. Badang also got the honor of being only the second film that gets a 1/10 rating from me.. so pats yourself on your back Razak Mohaideen. 1/10

Meh. if there were not too much of unnecessary screaming (just to create intense moments/macho moments), I probably can rate it higher. This film is also a tryhard imitation of The Departed, which itself is a remake of Infernal Affairs. 4/10

I watch more Hollywood movies than any other movies. I guess for most movie lovers, it's the same case as Hollywood dominates the film industry more than any other country. I do, however, has some passion on other movies, such as the Bollywood movies, and Japanese movies (which I am not ashamed to admit, mostly are tokusatsu or anime related). How about my local films? Malaysian movies? Well, I don't know, man. If you are a Malaysian or if you follow Malaysian cinema scene, it can be seen that it is not triumphant. It is not a money-making machine like Hollywood, or not even in terms of producing good, high quality films like Japan, Italy or Frence. Most films released here are in Malay language, catered for Malay audiences, and most of them are, I would say, not good. In terms of production value, as well as the films' messages as well. But I guess the scene is changing now. Back in 2011, when I was in Form 4, I was really into local cinema scene. I followed