"Kinta" Movie Review

Director: C.L. Hor
Cast: Robin Ho, Kuan Jun-Fei, David Bao, Michael Chin, Shawn Lee, Patrick Teoh, Albert Yuen


The film's title "Kinta" refers to a district in the state of Perak, Malaysia which was one of the major producers of tin ore while under British colonial rule. At the beginning of the film, there is a brief history lesson about the migration of Chinese to Malaya in the 19th century to work as slave labourers in tin mines. Most of them were brought here on ‘contracts’ where they are only allowed to return back to their homeland after serving for a period of time.

We are then introduced to the stars of the film - four slaves working for a wealthy mine owner, Uncle Hoong (Patrick Teoh). The quartet consist of Lung/Dragon (Robin Ho), Kit/Ace (Kuan Jun-Fei), Kwong/Blaze (David Bao), and Fu/Tiger (Michael Chin). One night, Uncle Hoong decides to kill all the slaves and have them replaced with a new batch instead. Only the four slaves, along with their foreman, Uncle Tin (Albert Yuen) managed to escape the massacre. Badly injured, they are saved by the Malay locals from a nearby village. During their recovery, their back stories were told by the use of flashbacks. The group then goes through a series of martial arts training, followed by the final caged fight against the bad guys when Uncle Hoong holds a competition to select a new foreman for the fresh batch of slaves.

The plot of "Kinta' sounds pretty decent but most unfortunately, the execution and editing of the film was really poor and it just doesn’t quite live up to its potential.

The flashbacks, which provide the back stories to the film, were so poorly edited that you never know whether the events are happening in the past or the present. The flashbacks also provide the director an excuse to repeat the exact fight scenes that took place earlier in the film. Maybe the running time of the film is too short perhaps?

The ending of the film, if you can call it that, does not provide any satisfying resolutions to the main plot or any of the sub-plots. The movie ends right after the cage fight and does not address the fate of the main characters or of the bastard Uncle Hoong.

My other complaint is the large amount of CGI blood used in fight scenes. Instead of enhancing the fight scenes, the CGI blood gives them a comic-book feel (in a bad way) and looks really fake.

The only good thing I can say about the film is the fight choreography by Hong Kong veteran Chin Kar-Lok. All the four main actors as well as Uncle Hoong’s right hand man, played by Shawn Lee are real life martial arts champions. And it really shows as all of them deliver solid fight performances, especially Shawn Lee who looks ferocious in his fight scenes.

I think only hardcore fans of kung fu films might enjoy “Kinta” because of the incoherent plot and messy editing. I have high hopes for the film, which is touted as Malaysia's first martial arts film. Unfortunately I left the theatre disappointed as the end result doesn’t live up to the hype.

Score: 4/10


Related post: Malaysia's First Martial Arts Movie