Reviews

• 

  ★★★½ review by Abu Sudar on Letterboxd

  Waktu Singapura hendak menyerahkan film ini untuk seleksi Oscar aku penasaran.

  Manakala Aiman dipindahtugaskan dari militer ke penjara, dia seperti mengulang bab kelam masa lalunya. Bapaknya pernah dihukum gantung di penjara itu. Bukan hanya pada ruangan-penjara sebagai memori pahit, tapi memori manusianya masih eksis di sana, selama 30 tahun bertugas. Pakcik Rahim si tukang jagal—dia pula lah yang mengeksekusi bapak Aiman. Cerita masih blur dan kabur, mau ke mana hawa psikologi film dan karakter Apprentice ini. Balas dendam, ranah hukum menjadi terlalu pribadi, napak tilas, mengimunkan diri sendiri dari luka, semua seperti diaduk dalam satu cangkir dan kita tidak tahu rasa apa yang dominan.

  Namun, rasa yang sudah solid—meski tidak punya jejak rasa kuat—dibuyarkan dengan dialog Aiman dan Rahman di ujung cerita ketika Rahman tahu siapa Aiman sebenarnya. Kesannya adegan sinetron banget (verbal banget) dialog itu, padahal ya film ini kerjasama Jerman, Perancis, Hong Kong, dan Qatar. Juga pada fragmen motivasi bapaknya Aiman memutilasi sahabatnya itu terasa goyang. Aiman jadi budak badung karena peristiwa itu pun terkesan tipikal. Terpidana mati, Randy, sebenarnya punya potensi setajam sembilu bagi penonton meski kurang dikembangkan. Tapi baguslah, drama seperti itu jatuhnya akan klise kalau terlalu berkembang di filmnya.

  Apa pun, Apprentice meremangkan bulu roma ketika Rahim mendeskripsikan cara mengeksekusi terpidana, termasuk cara gambar bersuara, dan cara suara melukis gambarnya yang lumayan angker tentang penjara dan hukuman mati.

• 

  ★★★½ review by Luis_989 on Letterboxd

  Complex, undoubtedly complex, if you watch it accompanied you will have an interesting post-movie talk.

• 

  ★★★★ review by schneeland on Letterboxd

  Boo Junfengs indonesisches Drama APPRENTICE aka. Tu Xing (2016) ist momentan auf Festival Scope zu sehen. Ein reduzierter, auf kleiner Flamme köchelnder slow-cinema Gefängnis-Film, der mit der Zeit aus seinem Inneren heraus eine mächtig bedrohliche Spannung aufbaut.

  Normalerweise ist das nicht so meine Tasse Tee, aber hier haben wir es mit einer anderen Perspektive wie so häufig sonst zu tun: mit der aus der Sicht des Wärters - eines Vollstreckers mit dem Strick, denn dort gibt es noch die Todesstrafe, und so gerät Aiman bald in eine Zwickmühle. Zumal es noch ein Geheimnis im Hintergrund gibt, das die Gefahrenlage deutlich verschärft.

  Ein ruhiger und zugleich hochspannender, wie auch moralisch komplexer slow-cinema-Film südostasiatischer Provenienz und Durchschlagkraft.

• 

  ★★★★ review by Jakarta Cinema Club on Letterboxd

  This film's creators definitely have guts to create a movie about the death penalty in Singapore. Even though the basis of this film's story is much more complex, I think the main topic that the filmmakers really wanted to explore is about the executioners' state of mind. Can they really treat each of the execution just like a regular job and feel nothing for the people that they executed?

• 

  ★★★★ review by Kirat on Letterboxd

  Fantastic film. Now THIS is how you do arthouse cinema. THIS is a production with a good script, proper execution, solid plot and enough, but not too much, narrative tension to move the story forward. Stellar performances from all three leads - Firdaus Rahman, Wan Hanafi Su and Mastura Ahmad all seemed to fall into their roles with ease. Even the dynamics between them felt natural. It would've been very easy for this film to turn into an activisty preachy polemic, but that it didn't is a credit to the writers and producers. A little suspension of disbelief is required - the odds of someone escaping security checks within the highly-regulated Singapore civil service and getting as far within the system as Aiman does before being noticed is highly improbably. Still, the possibilities within that explored in the film are worth considering. I liked the storyline's exploration of the absent father-struggling son dynamic, the arcs of the angry young man and stoic caring woman, the ways in which characters grappled with the ethical dilemmas they found their lives in. And beautifully soundtracked by The Observatory (my only complaint is there should have been more sound!).

• See all reviews