BRAVE

Brave Poster

“BRAVE” is an animated movie produced by Pixar and Disney in 2012.  It is a story that talks about a princess, Merida from the Scottish kingdom of Clan Dun Broch, on how she is brought up and how she hates to be a princess. The characteristics of Merida are very different from those Disney’s princess like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White or Jasmine (from Aladdin). The characteristics of Merida are more similar to Mulan because she doesn’t look like a princess in the movie but is a skilled archer in the movie.

When Merida was still a little girl

The story begins with Merida’s childhood life. Her father, King Fergus, gives her a bow as a present during her birthday. She loves her bow very much and she loves to ride on her horse, Angus. The 1^st time as she is playing archery with her bow and picks it back is the 1^st time that she sees the real will o’ the wisp. She is very surprised and excited when she sees it that she runs back to her parents and tells them that what she has seen, Just then, while they are talking happily there comes a big bear that tries to attack them. That is why her father loses his leg.

Merida riding on horse

The story then continues with a few years forward where Merida is no longer a young little girl. Her mother, who is the Queen of the kingdom, Queen Elinor becomes even stricter to Merida. There are so many lessons of what a princess should do and what a princess should not do from Queen Elinor to her daughter Merida.  Merida doesn’t like everything that is planned by her mother. The only thing that Merida likes is the only day of the month that she doesn’t have to be a princess. She is allowed to do whatever she wants because she doesn’t have to wear nicely like a princess and act like a princess on that day. She wakes up early in the morning, goes out riding on the horse together with her favorite bow for shooting. 

Merida and Queen Elinor

On the day that Merida doesn’t have to be princess, Merida goes back and during their dinner time, Queen Elinor starts to mention about Merida’s marriage. Queen Elinor thinks that it is time that Merida should get married so she decides to let the princes from the other clans to take part in archery games to fight for the princess’ heart. The game ends up being ruined by Merida because she doesn’t want to follow her mother’s plan. Both of them become embroiled in an argument which results in her mother turning into a bear.

Queen Elinor turned into a bear

It is really funny when Queen Elinor turns into bear but she still cares that others will see her naked body and even though she has turned into a bear, she still really cares of her queen’s crown. 

Merida catching fishes for Queen Elinor as breakfast

My favorite part of the movie is when Merida and her mother who has turned into a bear catch fishes together at the seaside for breakfast. It shows how the mother has changed from a queen’s attitude that still uses fork and knife to eat barbequed fish to not caring about how others look at her when she just eats with her bare hands and learn how to catch fishes. Another favorite part is when the mother bear fights with the big bear Mor’du just to protect her family. 

My favorite character is the 3 triplets brother Hamish, Hubbert, Harris of Merida. 3 of them are really funny and cute; they can sacrifice or do anything just to get their favorite desserts. It is really funny that how 3 of them help Merida and mother bear to leave the castle then get the enchanted dessert as a reward from Merida and turn into 3 little bears. 

In conclusion, BRAVE is a nice animated movie overall. There are not much of animated movies that are about family like BRAVE. An animated movie that is suitable to all generations no matter for the younger generations or the older generations. A worth watching animated movie! 

Review of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

The poster of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, it was the first local movie that I've watched. To be honest, it is a film that I will not watch at the cinema because  rarely watch local films. Because we have to write a review about the movie, therefore at the beginning I forced myself to concentrate on the movie. The first question comes into my mind was " Is this really a local film?"   I bet all of the classmates will never know it was a local film if Ms.Lina never mention before she show us the film. 

 The storyline of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa was about the journey of Merong Mahawangsa (Stephen Rahman) escorting a Roman Prince Marcus (Gavin Stenhouse) to wed a beautiful Chinese Princess Meng Li Hua (Jing Lusi) during the 2nd century. After they reached at the island, they got attacked by Geruda because the Geruda decided to kidnap Princess Meng Li Hua. 

Prince Marcus and Princess Meng Li Hua

 Both prince and princess were unwilling to get marry with a person that doesn’t even meet before. So Princess Meng Li Hua decided to run away with her handmaiden Ying Ying (Nell Ng) when the day Prince Marcus arrived. Although she successfully ran away but she and her handmaiden bumped into the Prince Marcus at the forest. Then, Prince Marcus realizes that she was the Han princess and knew that she decided to run away from the marriage. That was what Prince Marcus wants to so he decided to bring both of them out from the forest. It is hard for me to accept that both of them fall in love in the forest during Prince Marcus helping Princess Meng Li Hua to ran away from the wedding? So it was like 5 minutes ago they still hate or dislike each other but after 5 minutes they fall in love with each other. Sounds crazy and funny though.  Further more, it is hard to accept that a Han Princess can speak English fluently and several languages but is acceptable because she's a princess so she can learn anything she want but what about the handmaiden Ying Ying? A handmaiden can communicate with the Princess Meng Li Hua in english fluently? 

Merong Wangsa

"Sampai masa tibanya waktu, 

Redup hati kaum berdua, 

Bila dua jasad menjadi satu, 

Hidup mati jadi bersama"

My favourite character in this movie is Merong Wangsa (Stephen Rahman Hughes). There are pros and cons of him in this movie. The pros were he has good characteristics in the movie. He is a warrior that willing to sacrifice himself for the others in the movie and also he escort Prince Marcus to the island and rescue Prince Marcus when he know Prince Marcus is in danger because he promise that he will escort him safely to the island. In another hand, the cons are his Malay language delivery was quite bad in the movie, maybe that’s the reason why the film doesn’t look local due to the English language delivery in the movie. He is a very handsome man but I think that his acting in this movie was a bit too over in some of the scenes, maybe is because he used to perform in plays and musicals. Although there’s a lot of cons for Merong Wangsa in the movie but it is still sad that the movie ends with the death of Merong Wangsa. He’s such a warrior that sacrifices himself for everyone. That scene shows that he truly understand about what his mother told him via voice over, when he did the sacrifice.

Overall, it is a worth watching movie although there’s still much improvement needed but I guess it is already consider a big improvement compare to all the local movies we had.