![]() ![]() Describing Indonesian exploitation cinema as unmapped territory isn’t a lazy metaphor using the language of colonialization and exploration to turn a film industry into an Other. The Warrior makes you hungry for more, but while there’s a whole lot more Indonesian exploitation cinema to be hungry for, almost none of it is available. Prima’s performance leans heavily on glowering, but his glowers are things of beauty, and his thick flowing mane, fondness for bandanas, smoldering arrogance, and “bang you in the back of my van” sex appeal make him look like the lost Indonesian member of KISS. But The Warrior is all about Barry Prima, who plays Jaka Sembung. The centerpiece of the movie is a plot twist that sees him captured by the evil Dutch, crucified, and gruesomely blinded in a scene that could keep semioticians busy for years writing about colonialism being written on the bodies of the colonized. There’s a level of technical excellence, like its widescreen cinematography, that lifted it above the rut.” ![]() “But you could see it was coming from a different place and had different cultural inputs. ![]() “ The Warrior wouldn’t have existed if Bruce Lee didn’t exist,” Pete Tombs, the head of Mondo Macabro, the UK DVD label which released The Warrior on DVD, said. It moves fast, it’s coherent, its special effects have panache, and the production values are downright glossy. But seen today, The Warrior is instantly recognizable as a classic. You might expect a pioneering movie like this to look cobbled together and a little threadbeare, missing the freakery on display in later installments that were looking to give the audience something new. The Warrior launched a trend and two sequels, put its production company ( Rapi Films) on the map, transformed its star, Barry Prima, into an icon, and made a lot of money. “It’s the very first Indonesian action movie that could be called an Indonesian action movie, because Sisworo Gautama Putra got his inspiration from an Indonesian comic book, he created an Indonesian action hero, and it was all funded by Indonesian money.” “For me, it all started with Jaka Sembung, ” Bastian Meiresonne, the director of Garuda Power: The Spirit Within, a 2014 documentary on Indonesian action cinema, said. Directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra, this story of a normal guy fighting the colonial Dutch in 19th-century Indonesia features fire-breathing martial artists, wizards whose bodies keep fighting even after they’ve been chopped to bits, and psychedelic black magic. ![]() Indonesian exploitation cinema is unmapped territory, but rising above it all like a mighty mountain of machismo is Jaka Sembung aka The Warrior (81). ![]()
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May 2023
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