Synopsis
The movie “Kaki Bakar” is about a Javanese named Kakang who live in Malaysia with his family. Kakang is the father of the family and also known as the master of the family, where he always makes decisions, teaches his children about moral and beliefs. While his son Kasuma, always disciplined by his father. In the society, Kakang always being accused for crime, and cast out from the villages. Kakang likes to burn down the properties of the people he hated, while in the end his son Kasuma has tried to stop him but in the end, Kakang was dead shot by one of the village after getting caught burning the estate house.
“Jogho” is about Mamat a native of Kelantan, Malaysia, but he had left Malaysia many years earlier to join his brother Lazim in South Thailand in order to continue making his living as a trainer of fighting bulls (a Jogho). Mamat and Lazim are the leaders in a small village that depends mostly on the money won from gambling in bullfights for its sustenance. The story begins when Lazim is killed by Isa at the bullfighting arena. By tradition, this leaves Mamat and the young men the responsibility of taking revenge and thus preserving the honor of the village. Mamat visits Kelantan and arranges for his friend Jaafar to find and kill the perpetrators. Returning home, Mamat is gored by his new bull and is bedridden for several days. At the same time Lazim's two sons and a friend have gone into the town and managed to kill Isa's son Hamdan and his assistant Dollah Munduk. After the killing, the young men hide and Mamat is arrested by the Thai police, leaving the women alone to manage not only the village affairs but also to care for the bull. From the jail, Mamat pleads with his wife to pay the bail so that he will be able to fight the new bull. He is at last freed on the morning of the bullfight. At the bullfighting arena, Isa comes to avenge the death of his son. Isa shoots Mamat but miraculously misses his first shot and the second shot only manages to wound Mamat in the shoulder. Mamat wrestles the gun from Isa and knocks him to the ground. Now Mamat has the chance to kill Isa and avenge the death of Lazim, but Mamat refuses as he has become tired of Malays killing Malays. He lowers the pistol. But Lazim's son Sani grabs the gun and shoots Isa instead. The police come and Mamat surrenders himself to them, taking the responsibility for the murder. Although Mamat is taken away by the Thai police, the cycle of violence within the Malay community continues. (http://jiwang.org/malay-movies/34907-jogho-dvdrip-rmvb.html)
Review
The director for the both movie is director U-Wei Haji Saari. Since both of the movies are directed by the same director, therefore there are a lot of similarities among these two films. For instance, both of the movies have the same theme which is the male dominant, in both of the movies, the male characters are portrayed male dominating family, women, and masculine. In the movie “Kaki Bakar”, the children of Kakang is afraid of against the will of Kakang, especially his wife and daughters, as women has no power or rights in the family. Other than that, all the villages leader are all male, while women are the one who stay at home and take care of the family. In the movie “Johgo”, women are not allowed to enter the bull fighting arena.
Besides that, director U-Wei Haji Saari also emphasized the importance of the family, while everyone must always be on the side of the family, no matter what happen. For example, in “Kaki Bakar”, when Kakang was cast out from the village, the whole family have to move together with him. In the end, though Kakang had committed crime and being killed by one of the villagers, Kasuma is still proud of his father as he mentioned the good deeds his father did while running in the forest.
Other than that, director U-Wei Haji Saari likes to discuss the Malays society as a negative. He discusses Malays society as weak, waiting got subsidies and forgetting who they are which include social inequalities and ethnic struggle.
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