Sumolah
(U)- Release Date: 10th May 2007 (Showtimes)
- Language: Malay
- Running Time: 140 mins
- Genre: Comedy
- Director: Afdlin Shauki
- Cast: Inthira Charoenpura, Gurmit Singh, Patrick Teoh, Afdlin Shauki, Radhi Khalid,
- Local Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing International
Ramlee is tricked into fighting in the Malaysian Sushi Association's Amateur Sumo Wrestling Championship. He is challenged by the vengeful Akira, his love interest's former lover and main contender to win the prize money. Will Ramlee find the inner strength to face his challenge or will he give up?
Latest Review
Not so funny after all =(
What I loved most: Nothing that i can think of
What I really hated: evrything
As much as I love Afdlin Shauki and his antiques, i have to admit that the movie wasn't at all as expected. I saw the trailers and i thought it was going to be great. But what a disappointment! It wasnt funny at all. Itw as draggy and boring. The storyline was just ok. My bf felt asleep while watching the movie. I still love Afdlin, and I will still watch his future works, but just wanted to express my disappointment fr this movie.
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Not so funny after all =(
What I loved most: Nothing that i can think of
What I really hated: evrything
As much as I love Afdlin Shauki and his antiques, i have to admit that the movie wasn't at all as expected. I saw the trailers and i thought it was going to be great. But what a disappointment! It wasnt funny at all. Itw as draggy and boring. The storyline was just ok. My bf felt asleep while watching the movie. I still love Afdlin, and I will still watch his future works, but just wanted to...More
As much as I love Afdlin Shauki and his antiques, i have to admit that the movie wasn't at all as expected. I saw the trailers and i thought it was going to be great. But what a disappointment! It wasnt funny at all. Itw as draggy and boring. The storyline was just ok. My bf felt asleep while watching the movie. I still love Afdlin, and I will still watch his future works, but just wanted to express my disappointment fr this movie.
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Shows KL culture and More depth and less tackiness
What I loved most: not supid, tries to give a serious message
What I really hated: nothing to hate in this movie
I was dreading it being Astro tacky, but it's not except for the last 30s of smiling together faces, and outrageous product placement for Celcom. Michihiro Kubota wrote the script and it seems he set out to make an intelligent film with important moral messages. I would really recommend it especially to take foreign visitors to, cos it's much better than Hollywood films, it shows lots...More
I was dreading it being Astro tacky, but it's not except for the last 30s of smiling together faces, and outrageous product placement for Celcom. Michihiro Kubota wrote the script and it seems he set out to make an intelligent film with important moral messages. I would really recommend it especially to take foreign visitors to, cos it's much better than Hollywood films, it shows lots of places in KL and Malaysian culture. It has places like his house in Kampung Baru that I walked past yesterday, KLPAC, Puchong, the park in Putrajaya, The Japanese club and things like roadside foodstalls. It seeks to give a moral message without being preachy. Malays taking the piss out of themselves for being lazy and giving up too easy - Shows him learning humility and discipline by working with Japanese. So it's dialogue is 60% Malay, 30% English and 10% Japanese. The way this is done with each character switching between languages while the subtitles switch between English and Malay works well; you never feel left out as if you were watching a foreign movie. Outrageous product placement and I mean out F rageous, one time they actually watch a Celcom commercial, features a Celcom shop, people using Celcom 3G video phones and almost 10% of the time a Celcom banner is visible. Ogawa also sponsors and twice they go into Ogawa shop to use the chairs for free. The fitness studio also get a lot of publicity. Other Malaysian cultural things we see are motorbike repossession, and the hardworking mother paying for everything for her boy while he seems selfish and ungrateful, Japanese winding Malays up by being too direct and aggresive (what ?), him calling out at girls going past .. even Muslims. Strangely we see he touches women who are not his girlfriend e.g. Massaging their hands without asking then he squeams with embarassment when he sees the sumo wresters in loincloths or sees naked men at the hotsprings. Surely every man has seen other men naked before what's the big deal, maybe to women it's interesting, but not to men. So is it the norm in Malaysia that women have to cover their bodies so can't see, but men don't ask, but touch without permission ? It could have done with another few weeks for character development. The stereotypical baddie boyfriend repenting and becoming honorable could have been done better. And it could have shown better how they used their skills aquired in Japan to win in the sumo bouts. The womens roles were all about being pretty, wheras the men's were about being leaders, winners or baddies. It would have been nice to have had some better role models for women other that a pretty Celcom promoter or dedicated put upon mother. Nakotta- try hard, no matter the opponent
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the power of sumolah with xpax
What I loved most: Humors
What I really hated: Some boring scenes and sponsor's ads
Sumolah may not have power without celcom as the main sponsor. I somehow agreed with the CO's review (not 100%). The story.. fantastic. But the movie just not as expected. Suntingan filem sangat terokk..
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sumolah is beTter then spidey
What I loved most: afdlin with mawashi
What I really hated: -
sumolah lebih bernilai untuk ditontotn sekeluarga kerana ianya sarat dgn maklumat serta pengajaran berguna..kalau rasa teringin nak tengok si pua chu kang jadik jahat n blagak..silalah tgk cerita ini.thanks u afdlin shauki for creating this movie n good luck for u.currently dah tengok 2 kali dgn my sister
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The movie starts off with Ramlee (Afdlin Shauki) getting his bike repossessed. It results in him losing his job and disappointing his already unhappy mother. With no money, no job and no future, it seems almost too good to be true when he is offered a challenge by sushi restaurant owner Honda (Patrick Teoh) to finish off 20 plates of sushi within a minute. He tries, and fails due to two unscrupulous workers at the restaurant, and is forced to work at the restaurant to pay off his debt instead.
At the Boleh Sushi shop, Ramlee becomes smitten with Honda's beautiful daughter, Siti (Inthira Charoenpura), and finds friends in Harith (Awie) and Andy (Radhi Khalid). Forced to work hard for the first time in his life following the owner's 'Japanese way of hard work', his life begins to take a turn for the better. He also begins to impress Siti, which is what he was aiming to do in the first place.
However, a rival for Siti's affections soon turns up in the form of her ex-boyfriend, Akira (Gurmit Singh), who ends up humiliating Ramlee during a friendly bout of sumo. Ramlee soon finds out that he was tricked into working for Boleh Sushi because Honda's team was one man short for the Malaysian Sushi Association Amateur Sumo Wrestling Championships, held by the local Japanese owners of sushi restaurants.
Ramlee is forced to make a choice: to stay with the restaurant and fight with the possibility of going up against Akira; or quit to avoid more humiliation.
I've been looking forward to the film for quite some time now, and with the delay on the film's release, the anticipation was even greater. When I finally got to see it, however, I must say I felt a little disappointed. With all the hype, I really expected more.
Although the movie is funny in most parts (except for the insults exchanged between Akira and Ramlee which seemed juvenile and more befitting of the type of mud slinging you might hear on high school grounds), the whole piece didn't look quite finished. It was almost as if there was supposed to be more to be seen. I heard that the film was originally about 4 hours long. Evidently, most of it has wound up on the cutting room floor. No wonder the whole film felt and looked disjointed. There were some lengthy, unnecessary scenes, and although the funny bits made up for it slightly - they did nothing to enhance the story.
Another irritant was the amount of references to the main sponsors of the film - Celcom and Ogawa. The ads turned the film from a possible winner to a 'movie-slash-advertisement' for the two brands. The fact that I can remember the scenes showing both the sponsors instead of the better moments in the movie bodes well for the two sponsors, but it does the opposite for the producers. Apparently Ogawa chairs are a prerequisite for all sumo wrestlers. They are in need of a good massage after being thrown around so much. As for Celcom, it was everywhere in the ringtones, banners and even in a scene where Ramlee is looking for a job - the camera zooms into a job advertisement for Celcom!
Afdlin delivers a comedic performance as the typical lazy man. Some of his funniest scenes were when he tries to devour 20 plates of sushi in less than a minute, and when he ends up in the sumo ring for the first time. Awie and Radhi Khalid were not too bad in their roles as Ramlee's newfound friends at the sushi restaurant. Patrick Teoh's performance as Honda was believable - yet marred by the Japanese-accented English voice he had to put on. Look out for a scene when Teoh takes on 4 sumo wrestlers - with the sound effects added on, it lends credibility to the fact that this old man is not someone to mess around with!
Gurmit Singh was one of the main selling points of this movie (who doesn't know "Phua Chu Kang" and his famous "don pray-pray" phrase?). Sadly, he isn't given much to say here. The lines he delivers in Japanese were lacking in emotion. Thai actress Inthira Chareonpura plays Siti, the half-Malay, half-Japanese daughter of Patrick Teoh's character, Honda (there's a hidden joke in their names; see if you can catch it). However, sweet as she is, Inthira doesn't play a pivotal part in the movie, and seems to be there as just another pretty face who lacks conviction when speaking in Japanese.
Theatre actor Gavin Yap, who plays the role of Mickey from Akira's Diamond Sushi team is the slimmest sumo wrestler I've ever seen. Although his role looks like it was added in for comic relief, Yap ends up acting (and sounding) like a gremlin on drugs, complete with irritating snickers, sneers and yelps. It seems fitting to the role however, that he has a scene parodying that famous incident involving the infamous Mike Tyson.
The film could have had less narration (Afdlin Shauki as the Narrator here) and allowed the scenes to speak for themselves - having a detailed explanation rather than invoking subtle humour over the possible faux pas spoiled the moments for me. However, near the end of the film, the story starts to pick up again but by this time the movie has been going on for so long, you can't be bothered to pick up the little hidden messages woven into the story - such as the numerous social commentaries aimed at lazy people.
In true Malaysian style, the movie ends up being a bowl of rojak - sweet, sour and spicy - yet lacking in that 'oomph' or 'kick' to make it the best dish around.
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