User reviews

Ever since Dain Said's highly-anticipated sophomore effort BUNOHAN (known internationally as RETURN TO MURDER) has made fascinating round in last year's prestigious Toronto Film Festival, this locally-made movie had been earning high praise from reputable top critics especially Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. And here it is -- let me just say BUNOHAN is simply a unique effort unlike most locally-made movie you often seen in the cinema. It's a kind of genre-defying movie that is deeply poetic and not the kind of a typical kickboxing movie you might expect at the first place (thanks to the misleading trailer campaign). Mind you, BUNOHAN is strictly an art-house effort that is hardly mainstream and might bore off many casual viewers who are particularly impatient with meditative plot structure. It's certainly admirable, but not nearly enough to rank this as one of the best Malaysian movies ever made...

Read more at http://caseymoviemania.blogspot.com/2012/04/bunohan-2012.html

To be honest, I never enjoyed watching Malay movie as the story of them are quite boring. But this movie is against all of them.

I saw the movie at premium show. It was good. The plot is nice, actors are well chosen. In terms of cinematography it is quite interesting, the angels are nice. It shows truly Malaysian village life. If you would have a chance to live in Malaysia, this movie totally makes sense. I liked the flow of the story and the way Dain, the director, directed this movie.

On the downside, There is lots of dialog could have removed. Some shots are long, IMHO. The fight scenes are OK. As a person always enjoy martial arts movie, I expected actors while having fights, they would have battle more aggressive. I liked those fighting scenes anyway.

Thumps up!

It completely blew me away. If you think Malay movies are the sort of mediocre stuff (I wanted to use a much stronger and impolite word) that the likes of David Teo churns out (Mami Jarum, I'm Not Single and all that rubbish), Dain Said represents the other end of the scale. It's been a very long time since I've seen a movie that stays with me for a long time after watching it. Claude Berri's Jean de Florette (though of a completely different genre) was one of those. I'm also getting this terrible urge to watch Bunohan again. This time I'm going to watch it with my wife. I didn't bring her as I thought the violence might be a bit too much but having watched it, I would say its poetic beauty transcends its brutality. The pace is very slow and restless. You're not quite sure what's going on. Or where the movie is heading. Until the very end. And even then you're not quite sure whether you got all of it. It is also steeped in culture. A glimpse of a remote corner of Malaysia that you rarely get to see. Strong performances all round, particularly Faizal Hussein, Zahiril Adzim, Pekin Ibrahim, Tengku Azura and Namron. Even Hushairy Hussin as Jolok, the local sleeze. Dain Said must have clocked in many hours at the repertory cinemas (I recall him saying so in an interview) and the influences certainly show. The last time I felt like this was after seeing Andrei Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice. I'm going for a second viewing.

In my list of Malay movies, I only have a few movies that I remember making strong impact on me personally. Movies that made me talk about it for weeks, movies I repeatedly recommend to everyone. Bunohan made it to the list alongside Kaki Bakar, Dari Jemapoh ke Manchestee and surprisingly, Khabir Bhatia's Cinta.

I should applaud the director who unburied the best of the actors. Pekin Ibrahim should be lauded for making a character so typical so convincing. Familiar names like Faizal Hussein and Zahiril known to be good actors delivered something extraordinary not only to the viewers' eyes but also piercing to the heart.

I like to put Bunohan on the same level as There Will be Blood in term of the emotions projected. Bunohan doesn't offer beautiful scenery to help its beautiful cinematography but instead it uses beautiful cinematography to create a powerful mood.

I feel like I'm having such a limited film vocabulary to do justice to Bunohan. But suffice to say that I can see the bright future of Malaysian film post-U-Wei Shaari.

i just watched this movie and for me its very impressive touch by Dain Said. i never thought that a Malaysian will ever produced this kind of quality, deep feeling. when i watched this movie, i reminds me of Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel, Coen Brothers for No Country for Old Men and Paul Thomas Anderson for there will be blood. This is really not a typical David Teo movie with no meaning and there no feel to it. i really recommend this movie. They Dain Said managed the actors to projected their deep and dark side is impressive. the storyline, the camera moves, the screenplay and everything just right. I'm proud that this movies produced by local filmmaker. hope Dain said will produce another great project after this.