Outside of making hardcore, ultra-violent martial arts films, Indonesia isn’t really known for their movies. Not that I’m complaining. However, director Joko Anwar decided to step outside the box with the comic book-inspired super hero film, Gundala: Rise of a Hero, starring Abimana Aryasatya.

The film originally came out back in August of 2019 in Indonesia, and sparked a lot of positive feedback within the action film community thanks to combining super hero special effects and motifs with hard-hitting, bone-breaking Silat martial arts. It’s almost like Thor meets The Raid.

The movie is now making its way Westward to reach an audience outside of Southeast Asia.

You can check out the trailer below to get a glimpse at the movie in action, courtesy of Movie Trailers Source.

The story is like a lot of other coming-of-age hero narratives based on the Hero’s Journey archetype.

After a young boy is endowed with the power of electromancy after being struck by lightning, he becomes a police officer with the hopes of ridding his city of crime. Eventually he embraces his electric gift and uses it to wipe out local criminals, which then attracts the attention of a crime boss who hires 100 assassins to go kill him.

Cue shades of The Raid 2 where you get all these different types of colorful dangerous villains challenging Gundala throughout the two hour runtime.

Overall, it seems like a wholesome film filled with violence and cool super hero-inspired martial arts action. This is the kind of film you can show your son and help him to grow into an honorable and strong young man.

No complaints here.