During the summer and school holiday period of 2009, 2 Indonesian family films with similar sport themes are released to capitalize on the success of "Laskar Pelangi": Garuda Di Dadaku and King. Unlike Garuda Di Dadaku, King has one unexpectedly original thing going for it: it is maybe the first mainstream film in the world to feature Badminton - a sport popular in Asia, especially Indonesia and China - as its subject matter. Too bad that King squanders this great chance to make a good debut for a badminton film genre and like Garuda, it suffers from script problems with an unlikable main character.
King tells the story of Guntur (Rangga Aditya), a village boy somewhere in East Java who's plays badminton to please his father (Mamiek Prakoso), a big fan of badminton and Liem Swie King (Indonesian and World Badminton Legend in the 80s, whose name the film takes its title from). In the beginning, Guntur plays badly and has to endure numerous punishment by his father, but with the help of his 2 best friends Raden (Lucky Martin) and Michele (Valerie Thomas), he slowly improves. As he starts winning village tournaments, he set his sights to eventually become a member of the prestigious Jarum Kudus Badminton Club, where Indonesian badminton legends such as Liem Swie King and Heriyanto Arbi made their mark.
Garuda Di Dadaku and King never hide their inspiration from the success of Laskar Pelangi. King, particularly takes a page from Laskar's on location shooting and give us beautiful shots of Volcano Crater and aerial shot of deers running through the jungle. However, unlike Laskar, most of these feel like a tourism advertisement rather an integral part of the movie. Why would 2 boys go to the top of a volcano to discuss their problems? We don't know, but the scene's there. But that's the least of the film's problems. Right from the start, King suffers from a messy script that fail to develop a clear journey for Guntur's badminton quest. Sometimes the film feels like a few TV episodes strung together as plotlines of new tournament or badminton club come in disjointed one after another. But King also suffers from one crucial problem: for someone who's supposedly aspiring to be a player, Guntur does not like playing Badminton at all. He spends the whole movie brooding and rarely smiling. We're given copious amount of his voiceover saying he has to succeed because of his father, his friends, his neighbour, his country but we never know whether he's truly passionate about what he's doing. In fact, like Garuda Di Dadaku, Guntur's success are more often due to help from others like a neighbour who lends his racket or his best friend who register him in a badminton club (without his knowledge). But in return, Guntur often lash out at his friends or suffer in silence. The filmmakers might have intended to make something inspirational, but what they've made is more depressing instead. If there's a silver lining, it's that for a while the film is smarter than Garuda Di Dadaku in its treatment of action and consequences of lying, but that plotline is over so quickly and too bad the rest of the film never matches that early good part.
As a rare Badminton film, the film will disappoint fans for sorely lacking any exciting badminton scenes. Most of the badminton scenes are just made of alternating close-ups of each player smashing at each other or shots of shuttlecocks hitting the rackets and floors. Rarely do we get a wide shot of a match going on and in fact, shots of audience reaction far outnumber anything that actually goes on the court! Maybe it's just the short shooting schedule that can't afford the actors to train, but this is such a wasted opportunity because had the filmmakers actually bothered to make the Badminton scenes exciting at least, Indonesia could have claimed to make the first exciting badminton film ever! But instead, what Badminton fans get are glorified cameos of past Badminton stars like Heriyanto Arbi and King himself.
In my Garuda Di Dadaku review, I wrote that god help this country if it becomes a typical Indonesian sports film. King needs to be added too. Let these be the example of films not to make if Indonesia wants its film industry to succeed internationally.
King
Cast: Rangga Aditya, Lucky Martin, Valerie Thomas, Mamiek Prakoso, Surya Saputra, Wulan Guritno with special appearance by Liem Swie King
Directed By: Ari Silahase
Written By: Dirmawan Hatta
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