Ola Bola (The Genre & Background Settings)
Ola Bola is a sports-themed films directions Chiu Keng Guan. The story is about the glories of the Malaysian national football team at the time made it into the 1980 Summer Olympics. The whole story line is mainly base on a monumental real event in Malaysian football history. The time setting of the story is on 1980s which the technology is not advanced and people lived in simple lifestyle. The movie try to bring us back to the past throught a lot of elements and details, like the inconvinience of enjoying the television program, the old school fun fair and even the common fashion looks of the casts. The way to present to the audience of this movie is very interesting and it is an enjoyable lesson on learning the history.
The movie shows the spirit of brotherhood among the football players. Although they faced a lot of problems in teamworking, they had successfully achieved a great relationship and spirit of britherhood after they finish the training. The movie try to enhance the special relationship of the players by placing the situation of the players at the worst at first and make them go through all the challenges and problems gradually together.
Besides,the story also extend the detailsof each characters' backstories and personalities. The struggles of each characters's experienced and relationship between them and their own family become one of the elements of the whole movie. All of the players are came from different background and even diferrent races and culture, but they could still form as a group of football players and play togethers, achieved the same destiny. All of the story is very dramatic and is close to our life. It reflex the problem between the family members that we had faced in real life. The struggle of the relationship of the family had made the story become more interesting. The way the movie try to mange all the small story with the main line of the movie is suitable and succesfully convey the positive message to the audience that families's support could be the spiritual pillar of us.
The movie flashback the scenes from present to past, and bring back the emotion of the audience from past to present again increase the contrast of the time setting of the whole movie. The way like telling a story become the way to approach the story of the movie. Although the whole story line may be editted partly, the emotion which was given by the story increase the ornamental value of this movie. The contrast of the scene of the past and present enhanced the interest of the movie too. For me, the way to present the story of this movie is suitable and let the audience understand the story easily.
The movie have a lot of the beautiful natural surroundings which was capture Sabah. I was also attracted to the cinematography which made Malaysia look like the beauty it rightfully is. Helicopter views of mountains and paddy fields, slow-mo shots of the players as they battle it out on the field, those were the memorable visual shots of the film, and it was a great effort from our local production house.
Passion is something which is personal from one person to another. It is also a good movie storyline, simply because there is an entertainment value to it. Day or night, they played football. Rain or shine, they played football. Injury or fine, they played football. They even have to work like a others oridinary people to earn money for their own family. That was something which I believe echoed the efforts of the original Harimau Malaya team as they brought our country immense pride during the 1980s, for their determination and grit.
