January came to an end, and many began to ask the question: has the militant Merantau appeared? I inform you: unfortunately, it has not appeared yet... The release date indicated on some sites (January 7) turned out to be just the date of the Malaysian premiere of the film, and it is still being shown in cinemas in different countries. The situation is aggravated by the official website of the Indonesian militant - the news was last updated there in April 2009. The only thing that somehow saves me is the information on various social networks, where many topics are dedicated to Merantau, Uwais and Garret Evans in particular. But even there there is no hint of even an approximate release date for the DVD, only guesses and assumptions.
Do you know what: the word “Merantau” translated from Indonesian means “journey, journey”.
In my opinion, the reason for such a delay could well be the creators' precautions towards video pirates. For a film with a small budget, unlike much-hyped multimillion-dollar Hollywood blockbusters, illegal copies circulating online can have a negative impact on profits, which in turn can affect how distributors purchase rights. A similar situation occurred with the Thai comedy action film “Bangkok Adrenaline,” which was released on DVD only 3 months later, having collected a substantial amount in theaters in Thailand. It is not surprising that after such success, director Huber decided to create a new project called “Freerunner” (Freerunner). Garrett Evans, the creator of Merantau, has also made a similar move and recently shared his thoughts on the future project "Berandal" (Hooligan).
But the Thai action movie “Ong-Bak 2” I was much less fortunate. The delay in the limited (!) premiere screening and DVD release in America (from December 5, 2008 to October 23, 2009) had a negative impact on the box office - people, without waiting for the official release of the disc, began to download a pirated Taiwanese copy. As a result, the total amount in the United States as of December 27 barely reached $102 (box office receipts in other countries - $458).
But, be that as it may, there is no need to despair, because the DVD will appear sooner or later, you just need to be patient.
To somehow brighten up your anticipation, I decided to tell you a little about one of the film’s screenings in Indonesia. Recently I managed to find a small but interesting story written on my blog by an Indonesian girl after watching “Merantau”. I will not publish the entire article for two reasons: firstly, it is chock full of phrases like “Nyahahaha”, “Gyaaaaa”, “ck ck ck”, “OMG OMG!!” (oh, my God!!), etc., and secondly, judging by the test, the girl is clearly crazy about a character named Luke (Lauren “Lohan” Buson), and in every possible way confirms this with phrases like “I melt when I see him ”, “he’s so sweet”, “great blood, he’s so sexy” (to which the people sitting behind whispered “psychopath”). :)
After the session, a press conference with the director began in question-and-answer style. To the host’s phrase that everyone who asks a question will receive a T-shirt, the girl reacted intuitively and was the first to raise her hand, although she had absolutely no idea what to ask. Therefore, after thinking a little, I asked a question about the release of the soundtrack. In the end, she still received a T-shirt, but it was not a Merantau T-shirt. :(
She and her sister then gave Mr. Evans, Mr. Toro, Iko and Mr. Yayan a book entitled “Perantau dalam Merantau” (Perantau dalam Merantau), which included the most interesting topics from the Merantau Facebook group. And then there was a group photo with the Merantau team, after which she received a large A2 poster with autographs as a gift. Lucky.
Source: imdb, uang.persusi.org
I am waiting. I hope there will be something exciting.
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