Hantu Gangster: polished but artificial

I may be very bias with Namewee's movie. I actually like Nasi Lemak 2.0. I followed his songs before Negarakuku. I emphatise with him when he go and give Tenaga Nasional staff a headache. And naturally, people would make comparison between Nasi Lemak 2.0 with Hantu Gangster....

The story? Namewee had gone patriotic. The Malay, Chinese and Indian gangs used to be good friends.Their respective leaders were suppose to be "brothers". That was before one of the Malay gangster, Ewan plotted and murder all the 3 leaders. The 2nd generation began to fight among themselves, thus upsetting the unity among races. Namewee is a street thief, and while he stole a ring belong to the Malay leader, manage to see the ghosts of the 3 leaders. So, naturally the ghosts forced him to help uncover Ewan's plot and restore the unity among the 3 gangs.

Despite sounding okay on paper, the story really come across forced. It sounded like a Merdeka film (which coincide with August anyway). The unity among the 3 races sounded cheesy, but work on certain extent (what happen to "lain-lain" on the ethnicity list?). And they keep reminding us that this gangs started to look after the welfare of the people and only now, people lost their meaning and become monsters. Even the end credit song remind us that gangster is suppose to be good. Come on, gone is the era of Young and Dangerous. In a movie to remind us to be nice to each other of different skin colour, and yet it glorify gangster(despite reminding us of true meaning of Geehin and Haisan era); I just do not buy it. And the way unity message is preached across? It was even worse the a Jack Neo movie. There were moral message of unity every corner especially when the 3 ghosts appeared together. Spending 1 half hour preaching the same message is too much.


The jokes? Probably most people entering the cinema expecting to laugh their butts off like Nasi Lemak. But, alas, the jokes are not as funny. Even some of the jokes are repeated from Nasi Lemak. It may meant to be a Namewee trademark (ie the broken Chinese English subs which sounded still funny, but the head shaking chap is not), but most do not come in as funny the second round. However, the opening sequence is good enough to tickle anyone. The songs are okay, and boy, do I miss the songs from Nasi Lemak. Those songs are enough to tickle me. The songs here are well produced, but lack the funny moments.Having said that, the end credit rap song is really well done.

So, am I saying it is a bad movie? Not really. Namewee did improved a LOT in film-making. This movie is more refined; better directed; and well produced. Only some minor editing issue (which I suspect was censor problem instead) sort of caused some disjointed flow of the story. Good job! The main saving grace is the acting. Some really solid work from everyone, especially Farid Kamil as Ewan. Mind you, Namewee is NOT the only main star in the show; seems everyone get a fair airtime. It is still great to see so many big names collaborating. The best part is, their guest appearance do not appeared forced. Even Amber Chia's role sort of suit the story (unlike in some movie, the role is sort of created for the star to make guest appearance).



Overall? If I did not ever watch Nasi Lemak, Hantu Gangster would be more enjoyable. However, since I did watch it before, this film come across still lacking and bit forced no matter how refine it is comparatively.

ratings: 2 half poink!
comments: Namewee lost his rebel identity, and worse, appeared to lost the ability to laugh at ourselves. Despite that, I would still pay to watch his next film. Happy merdeka!