Film Review #2: Zombi Kampung Pisang

Ok guyz, I know what you are about to say......come on...sape la tengok citer Melayu ni dah sah citer lawak murahan.....


This is obviously a not so recent release (sometimes early 2007), and as normal like any Malay film release...the first thought that would come to me is ...it is so hopeless and insignificant to me to the extent I would regard the industry in totality as being non-existent. That is how bad my perception is to Filem Melayu these days......curse you Yu*** Has***..... (you know who I am referring to) and someone please bring back the P. Ramlee glory days.

Until just recently I was lured to indulge with this piece from the director Mamat Khalid entitled "Zombi Kampung Pisang"...or ZBK for short...or..."the zombies of banana village" in its literal English translation. Considering the flood of zombies and undead themed films coming out from the west a while ago (and still continues), Mamat Khalid may want to capitalise on the genre with a Malaysian twist to the story......still this didn't excite me even in the slightest. Let's cut the crap.....the sole reason why I agreed to watch this film was because someone had lend me a copy of its VCD (which means I didn't fork out any money for this) and commented that it was different from other Malay films and because I did not have anything better to do during one of the weekend. So what the heck....I decided to give it a go.

How should I put this....ZBK was actually (on a Malaysian standard) an above par comedy and fun!!! There I said it......couldn't really believe that I would actually give a big thumbs-up for a nonsensical Malay film and with Awie in the lead role.

The film started with the opening credit trailing on top of an ambulance siren which was a homage to the Jerry Zucker's Naked Gun spoof films, which I think did play well with the ZBK film setting....It was like telling the audience....."hey guyz this is not a serious horror film". Once the opening sequence ended, ZBK if I could recall would be one of the fastest film that really cut the chase and immediately jumped into its actual plot. It was obvious as the first scene of which Zami Ismail (Pak Uda of Kg Seri Wangi fame) seemed to mysteriously drop-dead while scolding Awie and the gang for not attending prayer at the surau. From then on the film went on showing more villagers mysteriously died while the remaining started to go panick. As there were many dead bodies, the village's assistant medical assistant, Sofi had asked them to be placed in the village's Balai Raya. Not long after that, the villagers once again was shocked as all the corpses somehow went missing and it was revealed later by Husin (played by Awie) that all of them had transformed into zombies, who had a first encouter with the zombie flock while searching for a public phone.

The Balai Raya was used as a clever plot device of which it became the central location throughout the film. This was where all the corpses and villagers were gathered while discussing what to do next and it was where the villagers was under seiged with the "otak-craving" zombies. The films continued as the villagers now led by Husin trying to retaliate and just when all hopes seemed to be lost.... suddenly there were a truckload of armies to save the day. Even the zombies regain their humanness when given jabs containing antidotes. It was later told that there had been an accidental spill of chemical disposal into a rendang pot at a warong in the village. Those that happenned to eat the rendang at the warong on the fateful day experienced reactions to the chemical which then turned them into zombies.

The film had many hilarious moments and my favourite would be during the zombie attack on the balai raya. Realising that the zombies were trying to get through the ceiling, Husin had asked the remaining to assemble the tables and armed with sticks and flag pole (complete with the Malaysian flag) they tried to ward off the zombies from advancing.......and from this point the film went into slow-motion showing people climbing onto the tables to help Husin, with some of them fell down and with the flag pole straighthen up the film came to a momentary pause clearly showing the heroic formation of the villagers on the table and the flag pole mimicking exactly like the "tugu negara"......and that was really funny.

All in all, watching ZBK was an interesting experience and Mamat Khalid did a good job in departing the film away from the stereotype Malay comedy. I personally think the film works due to its simplicity. The dialogue was simple yet funny and most importantly it doesn't sound anything like the hopeless Yu*** Ha**** films (mana ada orang cakap camtu in real life!!). Another thing is that film chronicles what happen in only one night in Kg. Pisang and throughout of the film, the costumes were as realistic as they could be...in this case it can be seen that Awie was always in a worn-out t-shirt, kain pelikat and with a "gayong" (as he was about to take a bath at the beginning of the story) and for once I could actually appreciate his talent in acting. As for the special effect....we are definitely still light years away from what those goons can do in Hollywood....but who cares when we have a fine and entertaining nonsensical plot.

So kudos to Mamat Khalid for trying so seriously to ensure that the film not to be seriously taken...just go watch it and have fun!! .......4/5 stars

The Chronicle of Me: Part 3 (Final)

The Working Years......until now (1997- )

Whew! It took me sometime to actually get down on this final chapter....anyway here it goes...

Despite persuasion from my undergraduate project supervisor to stay on and continue doing MSc and then Phd, I decided to go back to Malaysia to start working and earn money, giving reason that my sponsor's (i.e. TM) requirementt for the students to come back and serve the company upon graduation.

It was in Aug 1997 when I first reported duty and me and my batch was enrolled in 3 months mandatory training. It was a good having to re-group with old friends who were scattered all around UK years ago and at the same time there were also those scholars from local uni, hence opportunity to make new friends. It was during this training period I decided to apply for a totorial position in Unitele Melaka as I thought that I would make a good academician due to great love in science and learning.....so off I went to Unitele.

At Unitele I was assigned to a Bangladeshi Professor assisting him teaching Solid State Electronics.....my strongest subject and passion. In a class of a mixture of Malay, Chinese, India and some foreign students I immediately notice a striking gap in terms of academic performance. I wish not to elaborate this further and it is actually well understood. I did ask around why was this happening. One source of the story said due to overwhelming response from the non-Malay to enter the University (who happen to scored excellent results in their SPM), in order to fill in the Malay quota the university had taken the "tangkap muat" approach giving very little priority to the SPM results of the Malay students. No wonder lots of the Malay students did not even have a clear grasp of the basic of solid state theory...let alone to let them ponder on a more complicated physics and mathematical concepts.......it was like a suicide for them.

My stint in a university environment was not a successful one, after 2 months and a few phone calls I was transferred to TM HQ in KL. In my re-assignment letter it mentioned that I will be reporting to Corporate Strategy Division. Being a well-grounded engineering and technical person....I was trying to figure out what the he** is Corporate Strategy Division (CSP)....I was hoping that the HR will put me in network engineering or operation or something similar of which I would be more comfortable.....but why the heck were they putting me in CSP!! Never mind I said ...probably It would be clearer once I was there.

Well as the name suggests, it was not an engineering division, the division is responsible to in developing the high level strategic direction for the company......and how does an engineer fit in this scheme of thing. For a first few months it was hell! As I know nuts what these people are talking abount...all the strategic management, finance and accounting mumbo jumbo..."tolongggggggggggggg!!!!". Nevertheless, I was so lucky to have a good boss and he was once an engineer...so most of the time it was him that was trying to make sense of things that we do in CSP in an engineer point of view.

Years after the above event, I have come to terms ad got used to the working environments and its requirements. It had forced me to step out of my comfortable zone and actually I had leant and acquire a lot of knowledge.....this was actually my strategic inflexion point and for once I realised that there are more interesting things than just the little protons andelectrond. Life was easier from then on and it was time for me to take probably the most crucial step in my life.

I came to know her...well actually we were introduced by a common friend, Kak Nab (more like "kakak" instead of a friend to me) during a end of training function and it was on the 31st Aug 1997 which also co-inside with her birthday. I have to confess here that I was never good at courting women....the idea of having a girlfriend when I was a student was mission impossible! And that really made me an odd ones among my friends. But having said that, I did have a crush on my course-mate at the university but again due to my nature I was too damm scared to say anything....syok sendiri je laaa. Ok let's get back on the track....at first I agreed to meet her out of respect to Kak Nab....same goes to her. From one simple name intro, it led to a very lenghty conversation that night.....and from then we frequently called each other and normally talked on the phone untill wee hour......I used to express my perplexed-ness at those couple who can talk on and on ..hours and hours and hey! look what happened to me myself......I guess people in love have the ability to bend time and space as if it is just a matter of seconds to them.

We got married in 2000 and guess what...on 31st Aug 2000!! So for both of us 31st Aug is really significant as it marks our first introduction, our akad nikah date as well as being my wife's birthday......Subhanallah! We have been happily married for seven years now and Alhamdulillah blessed with 2 kids ...a daughter (6 years old) and a boy (3 years old)....and InsyaAllah one more is coming soon.....at this point as a father, since I already have a girl and boy, what comes after is not an issue to me anymore (but my wife really wants a girl).

- Me & My Happy Family -

So there goes a summarised version of my chronicle. The purpose of this is more to me than anyone else...to remind myself, from where I come from and how I got to be where I am today. We are not sure what would happen in the future except that we always pray to Allah for the very best.....nevertheless the past is for us to cherish and take lesson from it...and those are something that we know.