Snow euphoria: The movie reveals the beauty of nature both in Indonesia and South Korea.

Beautiful scenes and highly advanced screenplay techniques cannot hide the stale plots and loopholes in the new romance movie Jilbab Traveler: Love Sparks in Korea.

If Jilbab Traveler: Love Sparks in Korea were a commercial promoting tourism then it might have no flaws. Breathtaking sceneries of natural wonders in Indonesia and South Korea are beautifully captured through a number of wide screen and time-lapse scene presentations.

Adapted from a novel with the same title by writer Asma Nadia, the movie tells the story of Rania (Bunga Citra Lestari), a Muslim woman who wears a jilbab (Islamic headscarf). In the story, Rania dropped out of university after she sustained a head injury that prevented her from taking the final exam.

Rania’s father (Wawan Wanisar) encourages his daughter to follow in the footsteps of Ibn Batutta, a famous Muslim traveler, to explore the world so she learns that lacking a university degree should not prevent her from learning about life.

Rania makes money for her traveling needs by writing articles about the places she has visited for a national newspaper. One day, her father catches a serious illness and Rania decides to stop her traveling and goes home to Indonesia to take care of her dying parent.

Her father has one wish and that is for Rania to find her true love. He suggests her to go to Baluran in East Java, the place where he and Rania’s mother (Dewi Yull) met, to find him.

So Rania goes to Baluran and there she meets Hyun Geun (Morgan Oey), a travel photographer from Korea.

As expected, Hyun Geun and Rania develop a mutual interest. However, before they can get to know one another, she receives news that her father has just died and she is picked up by Ihsan (Giring Ganesha), a man who also has a love interest in her.

Where’s the spark?: Bunga Citra Lestari as Rania (left) and Morgan Oey as Hyun Geun act as lovers in the new romance movie, Jilbab Traveler: Love Sparks in Korea.

The love triangle between Rania, Hyun and Ihsan becomes the centerpiece of the movie, which unfortunately is narrated through a poorly written script and storytelling.

In the midst of this love triangle story is Alvin (Ringgo Agus Rahman), an Indonesian student who befriends Hyun and acts as his translator. There are also Rania’s brother (Indra Bekti) and his wife (Aldilla Jelita), whose acting quality is put under question.

Commercialization is definitely something to be expected from this movie.

People can smell the spirit of commercialization in it from the title, which combines three subcultures that each has a massive niche following market in Indonesia.

First is the jilbab, which has become a trend in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim population. Second, traveling has become a popular activity for the Indonesian middle class and, last, Korea with its K-Pop culture has won fans here.

Unfortunately, the movie has failed to play pretty with its marketing tendency. Instead of being a cinematic product, the movie becomes a commercial channel with non-stop product placements.

As a movie, Jilbab Traveler: Love Sparks in Korea is filled with endless religious clichés, poor acting and stale plotlines.

For example, during Rania’s first encounter with Hyun, neither of them can speak the other’s language and, therefore, Alvin is there to help them with translation.

However, when Rania receives an invitation to a writer’s residency in South Korea, she suddenly becomes very versatile in speaking Korean while on the other side Hyun also develops significant proficiency in the Indonesian language.

There is also a lot of awkwardness in how the three main cast members deliver their narratives. Bunga seems to spend a lot of time erupting into tears for no reason, Giring simply does not show any kind of
believability in playing his character and Morgan is far from impressive either.

Morgan is actually an Indonesian and in this movie he plays a Korean dude. This kind of reminds us of the Robert Downey Jr. part in the hilarious satire Tropic Thunder, in which he is playing a white actor who plays a black man in a movie project.

The director should have realized that Morgan is not Downey. He does not look or sound Korean when he tries to fake his Korean accent while speaking Indonesian. In addition to the language problem, Morgan’s acting is still far from impressive.

Middleman: Ringgo Agus Rahman (center) delivers impressive acting in the movie.

If there is a silver lining other than the beautiful panorama and nature in the movie, it is the performance of Ringgo.

Despite the movie’s poor script, Ringgo is still capable of delivering good acting through his intonations, his gestures and a wide range of emotional expressions.

It can be said that Ringgo’s character is the only human-like character amid the plethora of clichés in this film.

— Photos Courtesy of Rapi Films
_________________________________

Jilbab Traveler: Love Sparks in Korea.
(Rapi Films, 90 minutes)

Director: Guntur Soeharjanto
Cast: Morgan Oey, Bunga Citra Lestari, Ringgo Agus Rahman, Indra Bekti
Snow euphoria: The movie reveals the beauty of nature both in Indonesia and South Korea.