.jpg)
Local Malaysian film “Mencari Ramlee” aims to pay homage to the Malaysia’s legendary icon, Tan Sri P. Ramlee, in their own way. But how well does the film fare compared to other local films? Can “Mencari Ramlee” manage to “cari” it's way into the local's heart? Before we go in, here's a nice little SPOILER ALERT, so if you do not want to be spoiled of the film, please close you eyes (and come back later).
Premiered on 19 June 2025, the film is directed by Megat Sharizal, who previously did films like “Walid” and “Nova”. He also played a character in the film along with other seasoned stars like Tony Eusoff and Sofia Jane. The premise of the film is essentially a man who was forced to pay back his loans from a loan shark by impersonating P. Ramlee while accompanying the loan shark's sister who suffers from amnesia.
One thing about this film I really liked is how Zakaria was written for the most part. He is such a tragic character because of how willing he is to do anything to make sure his sister had a good life. The feels hit even harder when you see the glimmer of hope in Zakaria's eyes when tries to relive his passion of making batik, but then it all goes away when he finds out that no one wants his batiks. His romance with Zaiton, the amnesiac sister of the loan shark, is also done very well where he goes from visiting her to pay back his loans to visiting her because he likes her, even going so far as to breaking the rules set by the loan shark to bring her out to party. All of that along with Tony Eusoff's fantastic performance makes Zakaria a very interesting character in the film.
Another thing about this film I really like is Mimi Lana's role in this film. She plays Zakaria's sister Yasmin who wants to be a famous director in the future. The film puts an emphasis on her passion for film making and tries to show that woman can succeed as a director too. This is very important since in the setting of the film, there were no notable female directors at the time so Yasmin's character feels more rooted and important in the film to showcase that.
But it is not all milks and honeys with this film. My personal biggest “down” for this film is the latter half of the film. After the reveal of Zakaria not being P. Ramlee, the film sort of loses it's direction. There was a very odd dream sequence with a very badly made CGI of a peacock that does not really do much for the film. The twist of Sofia's character Zaiton killing her own husband which resulted in her amnesia is pretty ok, but the resolution felt so rushed. We saw that Zakaria was shot and most likely died at the scene too, but the film immediately transitions into the final scene where Yasmin made the story into a successful film, but for some reason from afar, both Zakaria and Zaiton were watching her in black and white filter. What happened to Zaiton? Did she also died? How and when did that happened? This film genuinely had a very good start, but the rushed ending just sort of confuses everything and miss it's landing. Sofia Jane's character could've been written so much better too and with Sofia's performance, she would've been a wonderful character to watch in the cinema.
So should you watch “Mencari Ramlee”. I think you should give it a chance just to see the actor's performances. Despite what I think of the story, it is still a very well acted film. Overall a 7/10 from me.
Austin Lee (austinleexq03@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.