sepet 
Soheil Shadian
Instructor: DR.HE
Course: English 112
Section# 5
Sepet
Yasmin Ahmad directed “Sepet”; in this film his main relevance is of course to the United States. Portions of the film may discuss themes that are not necessarily true outside that country; indeed, some of the film's fiercest criticisms have been that it doesn't even accurately portray race relations in America itself. Malaysians, in reality, their daily lives, bisect the limitations of cultural and ethnicity. Sepet exemplifies this reality and is unpretentious in its delivery. Most Malay films lack this artistic honesty when it comes to the portrayal of Malay culture way of life. In the blueprint of Malay film, there is no depth and dimension to the characters. The societal norms and tunnel vision narrow mindedness of the Malay society needs a breather of truth and Sepet certainly blows some wind in that direction. This intelligent and moving drama follows the blossoming relationship between a sixteen-year-old Muslim Malay girl, Orked, and Lee Seow-Loong, a Chinese Malaysian who sells pirate VCDs on a street market. Still at school, Orked studies the Koran, but also adores Hong Kong movie stars. Loong's life is more complicated. Without a father figure, he spends a lot of his time with a street gang: one which is involved - and rather out of its depth - with a rival gang. All this is in marked contrast to his home life with his adoring mother who gently mocks his trendy, spiky Hong Kong hairstyle. Ahmad builds these two figures into strong, interesting characters through the simple technique of reversing expected roles: Loong is the shy romantic who loves to read and write poetry, despite his father inappropriately having named him after kung-fu legend Bruce Lee; Orked is the argumentative free spirit with a passion for Wong Kar-Wai and John Woo.
This provides for their meeting in a scene in which Orked goes searching for VCDs at the market, a scene which introduces most of the major themes
Instructor: DR.HE
Course: English 112
Section# 5
Sepet
Yasmin Ahmad directed “Sepet”; in this film his main relevance is of course to the United States. Portions of the film may discuss themes that are not necessarily true outside that country; indeed, some of the film's fiercest criticisms have been that it doesn't even accurately portray race relations in America itself. Malaysians, in reality, their daily lives, bisect the limitations of cultural and ethnicity. Sepet exemplifies this reality and is unpretentious in its delivery. Most Malay films lack this artistic honesty when it comes to the portrayal of Malay culture way of life. In the blueprint of Malay film, there is no depth and dimension to the characters. The societal norms and tunnel vision narrow mindedness of the Malay society needs a breather of truth and Sepet certainly blows some wind in that direction. This intelligent and moving drama follows the blossoming relationship between a sixteen-year-old Muslim Malay girl, Orked, and Lee Seow-Loong, a Chinese Malaysian who sells pirate VCDs on a street market. Still at school, Orked studies the Koran, but also adores Hong Kong movie stars. Loong's life is more complicated. Without a father figure, he spends a lot of his time with a street gang: one which is involved - and rather out of its depth - with a rival gang. All this is in marked contrast to his home life with his adoring mother who gently mocks his trendy, spiky Hong Kong hairstyle. Ahmad builds these two figures into strong, interesting characters through the simple technique of reversing expected roles: Loong is the shy romantic who loves to read and write poetry, despite his father inappropriately having named him after kung-fu legend Bruce Lee; Orked is the argumentative free spirit with a passion for Wong Kar-Wai and John Woo.
This provides for their meeting in a scene in which Orked goes searching for VCDs at the market, a scene which introduces most of the major themes