Cop land: Oka Antara portrays Brata, a ruthless police detective in the new series Brata from HOOQ and Max Stream. (Courtesy of HOOQ)

Aside from feeding the public’s interest in action-packed entertainment, new digital television series Brata aims to also show the stark realities that people within the police force go through when confronted with gruesome cases.

Spanning six episodes, Brata is an exclusive series that is currently only available through the MAXStream streaming services owned by telecommunications operator Telkomsel, as well as through streaming service HOOQ, and indulges the taste for violent and psychological action.

Brata presents itself as a tense action-crime series, in the vein of NCIS but on a more weaponized level, which will satisfy the Indonesian public’s thirst and lust for fists landing on flesh and manly bloodshed.

The series will definitely draw interest in a ripe market for a country where its best actors have mostly worked in high-profile action films here and abroad. Lead actor and title character Oka Antara carries with him a stunning portfolio that includes appearances in The Raid 2, Killers and Foxtrot 6, while the supporting cast is made up of Laura Basuki, Yayu Unru, Haydar Salishz and Ivanka Suwandi among others.

The series’ storyline revolves around Brata (Oka), a ruthless police detective who prefers to play by his own rules in solving grisly crimes in the dark Jakarta of the series’ universe. Meanwhile, lead actress Laura plays a forensics doctor, an expert in criminology, who helps with the crucial actions behind the action. Mixed in with the criminal stories is the inner struggles within Brata’s psyche as he struggles with personal demons, especially regarding an estranged father that haunts him even on the job.

Showrunner Eddri “ES Ito” Sumitra, who is also the series’ primary writer and a novelist, explains that the series is inspired by the psychological struggles of the police force that come with solving grisly cases, the struggles of which are typically unseen by the public.

“The reality is, things rarely go smooth for detectives when they are solving a case. The struggles, be it from themselves or from external factors, are the reality that we want to show in this series,” Ito said during the series’ premiere.

“And also, these experiences come from real life experiences of people within the force that aren’t usually depicted in films,” he added.

The nature of the crimes in this series are indeed grisly and are able to evoke traumatic images for those who were at the scene first hand. The first episode, particularly, sees Brata deal with a case that involves identifying several mutilated body parts found in an old building, later of which he discovers come from five different people, revealing a more sinister crime afoot rather than just one bloody kill.

The depth of the story, written by Ito and Syamsul Hadi, is brought to life under the direction Kuntz Agus and Michael Pohorly, who bring out the mise-en-scene of the cesspool that the Jakarta underbelly really is very effectively, as if one would not be too surprised that such crimes really do happen in the city’s depths.

“[These imageries] perfectly sets the stage for nuanced human drama as well as thrilling action sequences. Brata is specifically crafted to keep you on the edge of your seat,” commented HOOQ chief content officer
Jennifer Batty.

Brata is the first original Indonesian series for HOOQ, which currently possesses the largest digital streaming library of Indonesian films in the country.

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