Battle of Surabaya (2015) Online

ill be fair and square when it's come the time for a review

1. It's an excellent work in "National" scale but in larger scale it's no so good.

2. The animation isn't smooth enough for me, well it doesn't really matter because as we know the animator still lack of experience. but still it's a great work for new team but as i said the animators still need to improve their animating skills

3. is it only me or do everyone feel something wrong with the SFX because it kinda bother me if the SFX have lower quality than the animation.

4. i don't feel any emotion from the dubber

Overall it's a great movie in "national" scale but it still need to be perfected. the team still need to improve their skills.

yeah that's all from me

if you really like an indie and "fresh" animation i recommend you to watch this but if you don't want to disappointed with a "newborn" animation then i recommend you to search animation movie

As an Indonesian, I was really excited when this movie came out, me and my friends were planning to watch the movie together as the trailer was really amazing, oh, did I say that the movie wins the "Golden Trailer Award"?. However it is definitely not worth spending 20 quids on this H̶o̶r̶r̶i̶b̶l̶e̶ ahem, 'movie'. So ladies and gentlemen I present my review on this movie.

-STORY/PLOT (OR WHATEVER): I love Indonesia's history, ask me anything regarding Indonesia, and I will answer it in a matter of seconds. However this was my first time hearing about the "Peristiwa 10 November" or is known as "Battle of Surabaya" internationally. So I thought I could learn a thing or two about the war that took place in Surabaya on November, but no, basically first quarter of the movie, we were introduced to a person called Musa, which was a young lad who works as an ordinary mailman and cleans people's shoes as side job. And then we had Yumna, Musa's crush, and Danu whom I forgot what role he had (but he was definitely one of the main characters). Instead of focusing on telling what really happened in detail, the producers of the movie decided to focus more on romance, and this turned out to be really annoying as literally, almost 70% of this movie was romance (they should rename the title to "Romance of Surabaya" hahaha, no I am serious), oh and the romance was not even good. Story was not explained clearly, I was having difficulty coping up with the storyline. What a disaster.

-ART/ANIMATION: Okay, the animation or art is actually really good! I really have to give credit to Indonesia for this. Characters designs were really well done. the Environment design was breathtaking, every single sky, bird, tree was absolutely stunning. However, the animation isn't really that amazing if you compared it to let say, Japan animations, Nevertheless, GOOD JOB INDONESIA!.

-Audio/Sound: With Maudy Ayunda casting as one of the main characters, what can go wrong?. Moreover, the opening and ending songs were the creations of Maudy, if you don't know who Maudy is, google her, you will thank me later.

-Characters: All three main casts had horrendous characters, plain, boring, dull, and inconsistent.

-Enjoyment: Except for the art, and sound, this movie is not enjoyable at all. the target audience for this movie was all ages, but as a 19 years old teenager, I certainly did not enjoy the movie at all.

-Conclusion: In conclusion, Battle of Surabaya is not anywhere close to perfect, the plot was not clear, the characters are not well thought, they were inconsistent, plain, and dull. Additionally This movie focuses on romance instead of educating people about what really happened at Surabaya, and the romance was not anywhere near good. On the other hand, the art and animation are superbs, furthermore, the audio and sound are also good. But honestly, what a let down.

If you seek to learn about what really happened at Surabaya on 1945, do not even bother to check this movie out. I did not learn anything from the movie, even online wikis do better job explaining than this movie (and its FREE!!!). And do not be fooled by the high ratings. I honestly do not understand how this movie managed to get rating above 5.

As the "I" in "IMDb" doesn't stand for "Indonesia" i guess I have to be fair and try to focus on its quality, mostly its animation quality. also a bit spoiler on 7th and 9th point.

1. This animation feature is a serious offender for Newton's laws of motion. Seriously. A few source i read mentioned that animators actually has to learn proper physics (mainly Newton's laws of motion related) or hire a physics consultant to make sure things move as it is. I'd say that whenever you see something moving in 2D animation, something just doesn't feel right; be it human, or objects. There are parts when it uses cell shaded 3d animation instead, and that might be the only decent ones, from the perspective of Newton's law of motion. Speaking about perspectives....

2. This animation feature is another serious offender on perspectives. Whenever you see someone standing with their foot shown on screen and with a background, you'll see that "what? is he/she even standing". This might be a reason why most of standing characters with backgrounds is shown in a bit close up, so that the feet isn't shown. but on some scenes when someone is running/walking/standing, it just doesn't feel right. The best part to see this is to find that scene where someone is walking up/down a stair, you'll see like the animated character and background doesn't look well aligned.

3. Another thing it seriously offends is human anatomy. This, combined with physics and perspectives is amazingly... offensive:

• As mentioned before, it makes movements, most of them, unnatural. you can see correctly "that is not how you sit to a chair" "that is not how you move your shoulder" "that is not how you jump" "that is not how you fall". Some extreme issues is that a movement is only animated with less than 10 frame/second, and it is a slow movement with weird anatomy.

• combined with perspective, you'll see that characters looks completely different from different PoV, at some part, heads looks totally distorted with head changing size a few times in 1 same shot, misplaced eyes/ears on different PoV, and characters doesn't look like holding what he/she is holding in the scene (the most visible item for this error are steering wheel and rifles).

4. I'd say that most voice acting are either fine or good enough.... but SFX and BGM is also another part with huge errors. 4-8 running step sound for 1 step movement on screen, for a few shots in more than 2 scenes. It also tried to hard to switch mood with BGM, but a sudden intro with huge volume to force a mood (which is supported with OK voice acting but animated like 3 points above) felt more like being forced. It'd need a smoother transition on BGM. Also some part suddenly had lyrics, I see 1 or 2 of them is "product placement" for a certain singer, but lots of them are just like being forced to chew and gulp something.

5. Continuity error. Lets just mention it with: When you sit on a muddy paddy field, there must be mud marks on your butt. Yet it is missing from the next scene.

6. Lots of model and model+animation error. Lots of soldiers are copy pasted. There is a scene where a character rips a banana leaf and if you ever seen a banana tree, you'll know that it doesn't work that way.

7. History errors, ranging from some more historical event details to wrong object design (mainly electric pole). This is very nitpick topics, but there is one at the very start.... The Yamato Hotel Incident is a bit inaccurate. Then If I remember correctly this Incident is written as "3 months before Battle of Surabaya" though it should be less than 2 months until that Battle of Surabaya.

8. Jokes are.... cheap, but I guess it is well adjusted to its audience's taste.

9. It was supposed to be a history feature about November 10th Battle of Surabaya. Yet instead it add element of secret Japan-made Indonesian Ninja sub-plot which is nowhere in history records. And there is no actual scene from November 10th Battle of Surabaya. The Battle of Surabaya is not in the movie titled "Battle of Surabaya"

And these are just examples of longer list i don't even remember anymore hours after coming out from the theater

Soooo, yeah good luck on the 2nd project, lets hope it would be better so that future work will have better benchmark.

TBH, If you just want to appreciate the movie because of Indonesia, just watch it and highly recommended "JUST ENJOY THE MOVIE!". But, if you want good Action, Adventure movie (as the genre said), you will be disappointed. Only CGI and 'fun factors' that you can enjoy 100%. But for the story? You can't expect too much from 'NEWBIE' director and writers.

The staffs must be thanked to the watchers who knows the history about that year events especially the 'real' Battle of Surabaya incident itself, so at least they can tell something like "hmm.. this event, I know this", "hmm.. that soldier, I read about him".

(1) This is just big filler, I was expecting, "is this a spin- off/side-story of 'Battle of Surabaya'?". (2) They make the existence of "Kipas Hitam" is pretty useless. (3) The treats given to Musa are so freaking low, not explain to much "why does Kipas Hitam want him?". I don't see anything that makes Musa is a big treat for "Kipas Hitam" there. (4) Some deaths are unreasonable, you never get the feeling when they passed away. (darn, except the Yunma's death! She dead for nothing, sacrifice her life for Musa? For what reason? Come on, she is a good girl! Don't waste her life even on movie!) The genre was 80% wrong, "Action, Adventure", but the actions are always *....* it should be "Drama, Comedy". Well, people say that "this is the start for Indonesia animation". Except they are really serious in this industry, they can 'gambling' make the 24 episodes TV series for this half- baked movie.

i love and hate this movie. I mean, this movie talk about Indonesia (my country). I left the movie theater a little underwhelmed. the plot and storyboard is decent. The point is, this film has so many points, that ironically, it has no point at all. sometimes the story was just off and this movie try too hard to be funny. i don't know what's wrong w/ me but some jokes so lame. some scenes exceeding comedy awkwardness level. Nothing is perfect, I mean I get it this movie is Indonesia's product. so yeah this is my love and hate opinion about this movie. Good luck w/ your next project.

PS : I liked it, but didn't love it as much as i love other animation movie

PS again : AND GUYS PLS BE HONEST W/ YOUR REVIEW AND RATING :)

I will state the very obvious. The graphic is awesome. Right now, it has THE BEST 2D graphic among Indonesia's animation movie. The style is similar to Studio Ghibli's. In general, it's very beautiful. The graphic is 8.5 out of 10!

But the graphic is not flawless. It lacked finer details. For example in most part of the movie, when someone got shot, the cloth was torn from the gunshot but it showed no blood. But later, the gunshots produce blood. *laughs* talk about consistency...

The lack of consistency also presented in the sound mixing and in the dubbing. I notice that it used 'present' pattern of speech instead of the pattern of speech matched the 1945. Also, it barely used the correct dialect of the area where the story took place. And there was a Dutch family who speak English! And the British soldiers who didn't speak British English.

But, the major downfall of this movie was the storyline. Instead of creating a conflict which was more realistic, cohesive and related to the Battle of Surabaya; they took the unnecessary effort of creating an imaginary 'secret organization' which no way has any place nor involvement in Indonesian history at 1945. I know it's a fictional movie but their take in 'fiction' is waaay out of the line. Because, seriously, ninja fight in Indonesia independent war at 1945??? And there was practically zero character development.

I am so proud of that they manage such an eye-porn graphic, but they really truly need to improve a lot in storyline department. The graphic quality is practically the only thing worth praising in this movie.

So, I just watched this movie with my friend who is avid anime fan. It wasn't something we expected. But it goes well in some parts of movie.

The Story:

For almost half of the movie, we see main characters interacting in sort of romance, not in war except the day of war happened. We were expecting to see high-pace action movie from start till end though. And BoS apparently revolved around the main characters with supporting characters who have different purpose.

The Cast

The odd thing we felt that the main cast talk like Jakartan not Suroboyoan (the setting where the event happened) except for some additional cast that gives some comical relief for the movie. It takes time to listen Indonesian language in animation movie but it supposed to be more depicting local accent. I am sure the English version is going to be fit than Indonesian dub. Its like listening sinetron (tv opera soap ) dialog line in anime. It supposed to be better, but yeah.. I know this is the first step of Indonesia animation development.

The Audio:

The musical score and effect was convincing and can be plus for this movie. Dialog line aren't fit but some cast could play very well. It takes time to get used with Indonesian dialogue where we get used with Anime. And background music and soundtrack, I expected some old songs in the era were remade and not only typical modern pop song where I thought isn't really fit.

The Graphic:

Superb drawing with 3d background, its eye porn for us. But, we take a closer that main characters animation movement looked stiff when they talk or in action.

The Fun:

Kid may love this and so adults. Even though in war, you cant see any blood. The message is great. No glory in war. And yet the ending... people would love it. Its good to bring kids to watch this movie and see their reaction.

The Rating: 7/10

I watched this movie for 3 reason. first: the trailer was good. Second: as Indonesian, I really excited when finally somebody make animation movie about Indonesia's History. Third: My friend bought me a ticket, so why not. it's free movie. nothing to lose right? but i was wrong.. I just lost 2 hours of my life for bad movie. I don't know where to start to explained how they ruined this great chance for make great Indonesia's animation movie. it's like they put their 60% budget for animation, 30% for the cast, 9% for Sound, and just 1% for directing. storyline is awful. plot hole? don't even talk about plot hole, i only watched a hole without the plot. I wish they took different route, especially for storyline, to explained for audience that is "theres's no glory in war" with more subtle way. or they can just change the title as "Before battle of Surabaya, and After" or "Organisasi Kipas Hitam" or "Musa and Yuna" or "10 minutes of battle of Surabaya with another 1 hour and 45 minutes of 25 other random story". *and people.. please honest with your review.. 10/10 honestly? how much for classic animation like Spirited Away? 200/10?

well firstly, good job to the production team and casts in creating this movie. I will just point out a few critics from fellow animation lover Also I am not going to compare the animation to Japanese anime and Ghibli, because its just unfair right now to put them in the same place right now.

1. Casts not done right; this is a huge fatal flaw from this movie. Not casting at least professional actors can cost a film a lot. The Yumna character for example is Maudy Ayunda, she is by no account is a professional actress and I'll have to say I just met my expectation right about her....she sucked. A lot of other characters except for Musa and Danu (who is unexpectedly good) just overdid everything so much.

2. Story lines are very short and a lot of moments are uninteresting and unnecessary. They cut through every story so much with so little details. I can say that 70% of the movie just bored the hell out of me, and it's only 99 minutes?!!

3. Last one is character development; everything is so sudden for me. Danu turns good and ready to sacrifice himself for a boy he barely knew even though he previously tried to kill him?! The best character in which I voted for mostly is surprisingly that balding English officer, the voice-acting wasn't that good, but at least I can understand where he comes from and his purpose for doing what he does....although the plot for him is surprisingly bad

Overall, I wouldn't say this movie is bad, but it's worth the watch...especially if you're Indonesian :). Please refrain from rating this movie so high even though its not all that.

1) 0 point for storyline, 2) 0 point for directing, 3) 0 point for screenplay, 4) 0 point for continuity, 5) 0 point for animating, 6) 0 point for casting, 7) 0 point for dubbing, 8) +1 point for sfx, 9) +1 point for graphics, 10) +1 point for technology supporting tools, & 11/bonus) +1 bonus point for respect. Here, i tried to review this movie as honest as possible..so this is it. I cannot pretend just because this one was made by my country persons. Well I'm not a big fan of film industrial politics in Indonesia anyway, since everything could be boosted with money here. Even we can buy honor, and reputation also. Last words, just watch on your own..and be honest on rating for our good. Thanks

Battle of Surabaya is a heroic movie that is heart felling, wonderful, and beautifully messaged at a same time. The storyline is enough, the animation is standard- sometimes going to be so artistic, but the morale and the coda inside the movie is one of the best aspects inside this movie.

With no propaganda- this is a clean animated movie, with a lot of heroic statements and also heroic character building, which made us feel this movie is a natural sensation of movie-making.

The background is beautiful, with "rough" animation in a lot of scenes; a huge minus for the movie. But it still heart felling, and also wonderful. The dialogue is quite raw, but its still beautifully messaged, with a great storyline, and of course the ending, will be a memorable message for every single audience who watched it.

the animation is pretty good, even tough the artwork, soundtrack is amazing, there are some parts that out of touch, and one of the sound effect is out of place but the story is good, Musa, who is only a thirteen-year-old shoe shiner, undergoes destiny through his adventure of waging war during the war time. fighting the dutch, england, ex japan samurai/ninja? and have a crush on his childhood friend? Does he manage to bring peace among the troops keeping on fighting for nothing?

Battle of Surabaya is a film very much amaze me. Ten or fifteen years ago i never think that Indonesia can make a film like this. The audiences like it, especially the children, and in some place (like in Jogjakarta) the movie is sold out, so i think there are really proud people that support this film

i really surprised that Indonesia can make a good animation film, hopefully this film will be the first step to the rise of Indonesian film

So far this is the best Indonesian animation movie. Great graphic,smooth movement for each scene. I love the story which combine love,friendship and history. This movie still have several minor weakness but i think that's not a big problem. I like the soundtrack which titled "Mengingatmu" (Remember you). The weaknesses of this movie is The dubber of "Yumna" character not really fit with the character. In some scene her voice looks not natural. And then in several scene in cinematography we called it with jumping scene. And In the future if you wanna change the scene from a happy scene into sad and frightening it's better if the scene is changed step by step not suddenly and directly. And the message in this movie is: There is no glory in the war that's absolutely true. Even though you win in the war you still sacrifice many people who die in the war,money to buy the weapons and etc. Overall i give the score 8,5 from 10. I hope and i believe that Indonesia can make movies with high quality from all of movies component (story,music,graphic and etc) like this movie.

Well basically i really love to know that it's released. i've been waiting for more than 2 years for this movie. Best animation movie from Indonesia i ever seen yet.

It was good, really. start from the storyline, the animation, the character and also how the movie create a new perception toward Indonesian people about their own history.

Yap their tag line that this is Indoneasian movie with Hollywod taste is real. Meanwhile some people still think there are something incomplete with the ending. so they thing that the ending wasn't enough. Need more specific ending.

but overall i'll say this is Awesome :)

It's amazing how Indonesia movies has become stronger since the Raid movies, Indonesia has now become the elite league together with Hollywood, Japan, Russia, Hong Kong and sometimes China.

November 10th is probably the best war movie ever despite the 2d animation, the plot is shown why war is bad and why it's the best is because it doesn't portray anyone as an enemy just the war.

The story is about two young kids, a boy name Muusa and a girl name Yuuna. Muusa is a mail delivery boy who delivers secrets code to different province in Indonesia during the Dutch, Japanese, and British occupation. On his way he has to avoid the soldiers or if he get caught there could be complications for his country. But his world turns upside down when he loses friends and war breaks out, hell on earth has begun.

What I love about this movie is that they manage portray war as unnecessary and an evil choice, and nobody is an enemy, just the war itself, for instance when the British soldiers occupied Indonesia, we see the British General as a cold killer but then we learn his tragic story caused by war, same with a Japanese diplomat, a Dutch landlords and even some Ninjas with tragic story, most war story even when they show civilian tragic they all seem to focus on one soldier group as the enemy, but here it's different, it really show the war I see bad and we all are the victims and should learn there is no use in war. If Disney would make a war movie, its this one.