A young man returns home to his family who lives in a poor neighborhood controlled by a dangerous man and his family. But it won’t be long before all hell breaks loose!
Wira is a Malaysian martial arts movie that’s very tame. The action scenes are generic, but that doesn’t always matter if you like to follow the characters in the movie. But the characters in Wira are poorly written, and the man who has the leading role, Hairul Azreen, has as much charisma as a gray pear. And he should learn to shave! He thinks he looks so cool with his ugly sideburns and ugly beard. He reminds me of Mr. Potato Head from the Toy Story movies!
But the most important thing is the fight scenes since this is a martial arts movie. And Wira also disappointed in that department. It’s not fun to watch a movie where you don’t feel or see that the villains are feeling pain when they get beat up. The actors are very careful with each other, and some punches and kicks hit empty air. Where is Iko Uwais when we need him? Where is Donnie Yen who pays stuntmen so he can knock them out?
The best fight scenes we see are during some MMA matches. In these scenes, the choreography works much better.
The actors are poor, no one here impresses or has any kind of charisma. The movie doesn’t engage with its weak and generic action scenes. There’s no madness or creativity as we see in the amazing Indonesian movies with Iko Uwais.
And yes, I know that Yayan Ruhian is here in a villain role. Not that it came as an enormous surprise. But I’ve never been a big fan of him and his style. It gets boring in the long run to watch this choreography if the movie doesn’t mix it up with a lot of crazy violence and fresh ideas.
This was a disappointment. It’s like watching a tame and energyless Malay version of The Raid movies.
This isn’t a movie worth spending time on. Skip it!