Pitung 2: Banteng Betawi (1971) Movie Review, Film Still and Poster

Indonesia 1971
Director: Nawi Ismail
Cast: Dicky Zulkarnaen, Benyamin S,A. Hamid Arief, Paula Rumokoy, M. Pandji Anom, Fifi Young, Rina Hassim, Conny Sutedja, Mansjursyah, W. D. Mochtar
Rating: Dewasa (Adult)
Language: Bahasa Indonesia
VCD Quality: Poor/Decent/Excellent
Release Date: 1971; 3 February 2006 (VCD)
Running Length: 1 hour 41 minutes 53 seconds

The Movie Review

Pitung 2: Banteng Betawi film still 1


PITUNG 2: BANTENG BETAWI ( HERO OF BETAWI )
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

The Indonesian people have been struggling bravely for their independence for more than three centuries, surely in that time span, this country have witnessed the birth of numerous heroes and heroines. Those heroes are the real deal and absolutely not myths. While most of them have clear history, there are some that are still shrouded in mystery. One of them is the famous and noble hero from Betawi, the people who inhabit the city of Batavia (now Jakarta), Si Pitung or as the natives called him Bang Pitung (Brother Pitung).

Si Pitung was a pious man and excels in martial arts who devoted his life to defend his people from evil. Evil people, either in the form of the Netherlands imperialists named Mr. Schout van Hinne (A. Hamid Arief) and his soldiers or from the native itself which the Imperialist appointed him to be in charge of the area, known as Demang. In this film, the story actually revolves around Pitung's love life. Pitung (Dicky Zulkarnaen) has a crush on an attractive Betawinese woman named Aisyah (Paula Rumokoy) and plan to marry her soon. On the other hand, Demang also likes Aisyah and wants to have her as her 4th or 5th wife. Certainly, Aisyah's father, or better known as Kong Haji Naipin, and her mother, or also better known as Mak Haji (Fifi Young), reject Demang's wish which anger Demang and eventually takes over their house.

Hinne and the soldiers are also busy looking for Pitung by capturing and torturing the village people. And while Pitung is occupied in saving those poor people, Demang sends out his local henchmen to kidnap Aisyah for Demang's pleasure even though Aisyah has already recently married to Pitung. Could Pitung ever see his wife again?

Frankly speaking, I like this movie. And even frankly speaking, this heroic movie actually has many flaws here and there. Something that I could finally overlook but still a bit sad/disappointed when thinking about those downsides.

Si Pitung is based on an actual living person whose house still could be visited by the beach at Marunda, Cilincing, North Jakarta. The house is famous for being all red and is now one of Jakarta's cultural sites. Si Pitung is also widely acknowledged by people who live in Jakarta to be a Hero with supernatural skills. It is said that he could disappear whenever the soldiers of Netherlands/VOC/Dutch East India Company were looking for him, he was also said to be impenetrable by normal bullet and could only be killed by using golden bullet but only after Pitung's amulet has already been taken from him.

I've read or heard somewhere that Pitung was actually very different from what being portrayed by the good-looking actor, Dicky Zulkarnaen. It's said that Pitung, who was also known as “The Champ from Rawa Belong”, was short, skinny and has fairly dark skin. The witness said that her parents were friends of Pitung and at one time the Netherlands soldiers were looking for Pitung while Pitung was visiting her house. Pitung then hid in a small kitchen inside the house, and despite that the soldiers were being extremely thorough, they could not find him. And after they left, Pitung appeared out of nowhere... Nice eh? :-)

Those skills are depicted in this movie with slight differences, and even though the skills are not the focal point but they are enough to spice up the action scenes. Dicky Zulkarnaen is perfect in acting as the Betawinese Hero, his walk and talk simply resemble the majority of the Betawi people I know very well. The first flaw, however, comes from Dicky Zulkarnaen doing his action scenes, the martial arts or fighting scenes are not well executed, with his moves are a bit stiff and not fluent enough. This is worsen by the confused camerawork that often zoom Dicky's face very closely that makes me dizzy and even sometimes the camera simply just shies away from all the excitement of fighting. The VCD quality, luckily, is decent enough to clearly recognize who's who.

With all those flaws, luckily the story saves the day. It employs wisely the techniques on how to involve the audience's emotion to take side on Pitung. The filmmakers stir up our emotion by making the bad guys very bad and despicable while making Pitung very heroic and even miserable.

And while the story itself is already intriguing, the filmmakers still added it with one more antagonist character that his face has never been shown until so many minutes have passed, but we could get this instant-feel of disgust towards him, he cowardly betrays Pitung over and over again. Thus, we are even more absorbed to really know who this coward is.

Amidst so many new love movies with unclear and cheesy storyline, seeing Banteng Betawi brings certain patriotic feeling inside of me. Aside that I miss the near-extinct Indonesian hospitality pictured in this epic film and luckily my yearning for that was medicated when seeing the scene where Benyamin is hosting the wedding ceremony over at his house. Benyamin who is also a Legend in Indonesian comedy realm in this movie serves as a sort of comic relief as Pitung's uncle, Bang Miun or Cang Miun. Another touching scene is where Pitung develops close friendship with Babah A Cong and even vows as brothers with Babah Peng An, a Chinese man who is kind with the locals.

God Verdomme! as Hinne's fave expression, there should be more Heroic movies gracing Indonesian Cinema! Inlander! ;-)