In rural Indonesia, merantau refers to a sacred rite of passage all young men must undergo, leaving home to explore the outside world. For the purposes of the New York Asian Film Festival, however, merantau means administering a bone-crunching ass-whupping to any cheap downtown trick who trifles with you. It's a coming-of-age ceremony, it's a trip to the city, it's a spinal realignment operation, it's an all-purpose euphemism for pure, uncut win - Merantau is fun for the whole family, and deadly for your enemies.

The story is simple: baby-faced Yuda leaves tranquil Sumatra and journeys to seamy Jakarta, eager to start his own merantau and teach his native martial art, Tiger Silat. Upon reaching the big city, however, he discovers a human trafficking operation run by sadomasochistic Eurotrash brothers. Outraged, Yuda becomes a one-man traction dealer, protector of strippers and urchins, ready to teach the urban sprawl who its down-home daddy really is. Merantau - it's just like F.W. Murnau's SUNRISE, but with more lead pipe beatings.

The brainchild of Welsh documentarian, Gareth H. Evans, Merantau is as resolutely devoted to fleshing out its characters as Yuda is to beating the crap out of everyone he meets. Played by truck-driver-turned-action-star Iko Uwais, Yuda is a furious silat fighting machine with rock-solid ethics, the calm eye of a kickboxing hurricane, while Indonesian megastar Christine Hakim, doubling as producer, is the film's bleeding heart as Yuda's serene mother. Lush, lurid and loose-limbed, the film features blazing action choreography, an elevator cage match, and a guy who picks glass shards out of his face and cuts people with them. Indonesia's first martial arts foray in fifteen years, Merantau has come to New York to elevate your consciousness and kick your ass. Should you resist one, it will accept the other.