Bunohan: Return to Murder (2011) User Reviews

Casey's Movie Mania: BUNOHAN (2012) Review

[caseymoviemania · 5/10 · 22 April 2012]

Ever since Dain Said's highly-anticipated sophomore effort BUNOHAN (known internationally as RETURN TO MURDER) has made fascinating round in last year's prestigious Toronto Film Festival, this locally-made movie had been earning high praise from reputable top critics especially Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. And here it is -- let me just say BUNOHAN is simply a unique effort unlike most locally-made movie you often seen in the cinema. It's a kind of genre-defying movie that is deeply poetic and not the kind of a typical kickboxing movie you might expect at the first place (thanks to the misleading trailer campaign). Mind you, BUNOHAN is strictly an art-house effort that is hardly mainstream and might bore off many casual viewers who are particularly impatient with meditative plot structure. It's certainly admirable, but not nearly enough to rank this as one of the best Malaysian movies ever made...

Read more at http://caseymoviemania.blogspot.com/2012/04/bunohan-2012.html

Quite Interesting

[iManjp · 7/10 · 23 July 2014]

To be honest, I never enjoyed watching Malay movie as the story of them are quite boring. But this movie is against all of them.

I saw the movie at premium show. It was good. The plot is nice, actors are well chosen. In terms of cinematography it is quite interesting, the angels are nice. It shows truly Malaysian village life. If you would have a chance to live in Malaysia, this movie totally makes sense. I liked the flow of the story and the way Dain, the director, directed this movie.

On the downside, There is lots of dialog could have removed. Some shots are long, IMHO. The fight scenes are OK. As a person always enjoy martial arts movie, I expected actors while having fights, they would have battle more aggressive. I liked those fighting scenes anyway.

Thumps up!

Mindblowing

[johanrazak · 10/10 · 16 March 2012]

It completely blew me away. If you think Malay movies are the sort of mediocre stuff (I wanted to use a much stronger and impolite word) that the likes of David Teo churns out (Mami Jarum, I'm Not Single and all that rubbish), Dain Said represents the other end of the scale. It's been a very long time since I've seen a movie that stays with me for a long time after watching it. Claude Berri's Jean de Florette (though of a completely different genre) was one of those. I'm also getting this terrible urge to watch Bunohan again. This time I'm going to watch it with my wife. I didn't bring her as I thought the violence might be a bit too much but having watched it, I would say its poetic beauty transcends its brutality. The pace is very slow and restless. You're not quite sure what's going on. Or where the movie is heading. Until the very end. And even then you're not quite sure whether you got all of it. It is also steeped in culture. A glimpse of a remote corner of Malaysia that you rarely get to see. Strong performances all round, particularly Faizal Hussein, Zahiril Adzim, Pekin Ibrahim, Tengku Azura and Namron. Even Hushairy Hussin as Jolok, the local sleeze. Dain Said must have clocked in many hours at the repertory cinemas (I recall him saying so in an interview) and the influences certainly show. The last time I felt like this was after seeing Andrei Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice. I'm going for a second viewing.

Something to be really proud of...

[azrulazmie · 10/10 · 21 March 2012]

In my list of Malay movies, I only have a few movies that I remember making strong impact on me personally. Movies that made me talk about it for weeks, movies I repeatedly recommend to everyone. Bunohan made it to the list alongside Kaki Bakar, Dari Jemapoh ke Manchestee and surprisingly, Khabir Bhatia's Cinta.

I should applaud the director who unburied the best of the actors. Pekin Ibrahim should be lauded for making a character so typical so convincing. Familiar names like Faizal Hussein and Zahiril known to be good actors delivered something extraordinary not only to the viewers' eyes but also piercing to the heart.

I like to put Bunohan on the same level as There Will be Blood in term of the emotions projected. Bunohan doesn't offer beautiful scenery to help its beautiful cinematography but instead it uses beautiful cinematography to create a powerful mood.

I feel like I'm having such a limited film vocabulary to do justice to Bunohan. But suffice to say that I can see the bright future of Malaysian film post-U-Wei Shaari.

Impressive!!!!!

[miziehmd · 8/10 · 20 July 2012]

i just watched this movie and for me its very impressive touch by Dain Said. i never thought that a Malaysian will ever produced this kind of quality, deep feeling. when i watched this movie, i reminds me of Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel, Coen Brothers for No Country for Old Men and Paul Thomas Anderson for there will be blood. This is really not a typical David Teo movie with no meaning and there no feel to it. i really recommend this movie. They Dain Said managed the actors to projected their deep and dark side is impressive. the storyline, the camera moves, the screenplay and everything just right. I'm proud that this movies produced by local filmmaker. hope Dain said will produce another great project after this.

Black not always bad,white not always good.

[izdeblur · 9/10 · 14 March 2012]

This film is the mark of reborn of Malaysian film industry.After a LOT of total disgusting craps movie,Malaysian need this kind of film.a film that force viewer to think,read and feel the film.

This film is not as hard as some other viewers said.its not highly 'hard to understand'.the plot is easy actually.Bakar, a man with clean looks while his two brothers,Ilham and Adil with dirty look but as what happen in our real world,Black not always bad,white not always good.

There was some great scene in this film that I like such as when Ilham dreams about something like pyramid.a great metaphor.This film's cinematography also will make art lovers smile and fulfilled their lust for art.

Go watch this film

Blood is thicker than water, but greed and avarice will advance you more

[tulan_ikan · 8/10 · 3 March 2013]

Bunohan is a fascinating insight into the reality of life and culture of rural communities that are so bound by tradition and superstition. It's a story of the conflict between three brothers - who are separated from earlier in their life, who develops personality so different from each other. These brothers then was dragged back home by their destiny, each with their own agenda and thus became an analogy of the contradiction between modernity and tradition in the daily life in a rural community.

Between blood relations, lust, greed, revenge, heritage and memories of the past, all of these elements are mixed, giving rise to the turn of events by the multi-dimensional characters in this film that leads into the narrative climax.