Ola Bola - Cast design and Individual Charaters
To critically assess the Cast Design and their individual character. Was the cast designed well? Did all characters have a purpose? Were the individual characters well explored? Or lacked depth?
I have never been a fan of local movies before I watch “The Journey” by Director Chiu. Not only “The Journey” has captured beautiful scenes that could even tell you the stories, the local action comedy film “Polis Evo” has proved us that Malaysian Films are on the rise. Now, the “Ola Bola” has been a hype since the beginning of casting. It’s set to depict journey of Malaysia National Football team winning Korea in the entry match of pre-olympic games in 1980. Surprisingly, “Ola Bola is not only about Football, it’s a weave of boleh spirit, family conflicts, unconditional friendships and dreams. It’s has more things that would touch your heart than you would expected. Besides, the movie has been a success on recreating scenes from the 80s. The story begin with a Journalist Marianne visiting one of the footballer Eric and they dig through the memories of Eric from day one Eric joined the team until the end. The flashback surrounded within Chow Kwok Keong (the team leader), Ali (No.10 striker) and Muthu (The goalkeeper).
JC Chee as Chow Kwok Keong
Chow Kwok Keong is like a pride Malaysian, He’s offered to join the UK football club but he prefered to build his home team Harimau Malaya instead. He’s the team leader but he is too eager to win and neglected the value of teamwork. He’s a perfect archetype of a fallen heroe that is very much self centric and did not understand about relationships with friends and family at the beginning. He’s also bringing trouble to his family in order to lead the malaysian team to win the pre-olympic games. For example, her sister has to give up further study just to sustain their family incomes in order for his brother to lead the team. Chow kwok Keong did not disappoint us on opened up himself for his friend and family. He finally knows that he doesn’t have to bear so much responsible all by himself. No matter family, relationships or friendships, we always need to work things out together instead of doing it all by ourself. As the famous proverb goes, we cannot clap with one hand.
Luqman Hafidz as Ali (left), Saran Kumar as Muthu (Right)
Ali is an interesting character to me, he’s like the Sasuke from the anime Naruto. He’s a lone wolf but he’s the one willing to contribute the best of him to the team. He’s probably came from a wealthy family too but we cant see more about him from the movies as the main stories are surrounded by Kwok Keong and Muthu. He has a very similar character with Chow Kwok Keong except he is more introvert and has no interest in leading team. Unlike Chow Kwok Keong, He never talks but always training hard in order to improve himself. In my opinion, he is like the majorities of Malaysian, regardless race or religions, we always work hard to live a better life but we see something that is unfair we are too stubborn to speak out sometimes. From overall point of view, I think the character of Ali is underdevelop and we cannot see more of him apart from striking goal, midnight practices and having a fight with others.
Muthu, here goes my favorite character. His relationships with families are like myself. He’s the archetype of Mr. good guys who always innocent, optimistic, easy going and work hard. I think the character of Muthu has been portrayed and developed very well in this movie. He’s friendly but not weak, he can do anything to protect what he want, though it might not work. He has to keep on working on gaining his father respect and always be a role model for his younger brothers. Beside, he doesn’t have the opportunities like Chow Kwok Keong or standing under the spotlight like Ali. This portrayed how the young people from the 80s are restricted from pursuing their dream.
Marianne Tan as Marianne
Marianne is a little bit excessive in the movie for me at the beginning. Later, right before the movies end. I realize that Marianne has a similar character of our generations and it is very difference from Eric’’s generation. We speak english instead of our mother tougue; We seek for all opportunities to fleed to a better place instead of building our own wonderland. We give up so easily instead of working hard to get what we what. At the end of the film, I realize, Marianne is a key character for us to see the differences of us and the generations of our parents. I think the main cast are pretty impressive at portraying their characters considering they have never act before.
