RATING: 1/5
Farid Kamil's action comedy KONGSI is certainly one of the most heavily-anticipated local movies of the year. In fact, the movie is so popular that it made a record-breaking RM1.1 million during the first day of the showing. Impressive box-office aside, as the real question is: Does KONGSI really lives up to the massive hype after all? I've got one word for you, and it's nonsense.
The story centers on a Mohawk-haired Tumulak (Shaheizy Sam), who is a hired killer comes from Thailand under the order of his boss, Kimpedu (Bront Palarae) to make a mess out of some of the highly-influential gangsters in Malaysia, especially Kuala Lumpur. Upon arrival, he kills one of the gangster's son and soon all hell breaks loose. Three ethnic group (Malay, Chinese and Indian) of gangsters, consisting of Pak Maliki (Piee), Jimmy (Chew Kim Wah) and Victor (S. Veerasingam), begin to pinpoint against each other. The incident quickly attracted ASP Shariff (Fizo Omar) and Inspector Olla (Yana Samsudin) to investigate the case. Soon more people turns up dead, which immediately brings this to an all-important question: What is Tumulak's real motivation behind all the bloody mess?
Speaking of motivation, this is what Farid Kamil and Fadzil Zahari fails to deliver miserably. The plot makes little sense and laced with too much unnecessary fillers. It is understandable that Kamil wants to make this picture as fun as possible which is intended not to be taken seriously. Unfortunately there is a clear difference between silly fun and utter stupidity. As mentioned earlier, nonsense is the best word to describe this disappointed mess. All those slapstick scenes are way over-the-top to the point they are more desperate than being funny.
What about the acting? They are mostly terrible, and at times largely awkward or annoying acting performances (namely Azad who plays the cocky but timid gangster, Mikail). Currently in-demand actor Shaheizy Sam may have the playful spirit to pull off a gleefully over-the-top role as Tumulak and he's even manages to pull off a convincing Thai accent, but his character is sadly one-dimensional. Even with all those flashback supposedly to understand more about him, his character remains as painfully sketchy as ever.
Farid Kamil's direction is fast-paced and there are times he does actually showing some promises. The usage of ethnic cast (hence the "1Malaysia spirit") to portray different races of gangsters with different languages are colorful, while the action scenes are raw and energetic. Too bad as fanciful as all the action choreography manages to offer here, the movie is subsequently ruined by poor camerawork that jerks too much it's difficult to enjoy the scene properly. With this kind of poor camerawork, it's no surprise that the so-called daring highway chase scene between a sports car and three police cars in the climactic finale is a waste of technical setup. If that's not insulting enough, the movie also cooks up one of the lamest endings I've ever seen in a long while. I mean, seriously, is that all you've got?
What a huge, missed opportunity that could have been better. KONGSI is just plain bad.