While waiting for the U.S. release of The Raid, I again streamed Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais’ first film, Merantau . The movie takes its name from a traditional Mingangkabu rite of passage, a journey a young man undertakes to prove his worth before returning home and starting the next phase of adult life. If I understand it correctly, it’s not so much about going out and making money as it is gathering life experience and discovering your moral identity—what’s acceptable and what’s unacceptable, what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s good and what’s evil. It’s a theme that adds Merantau to the list of films I recommend to people when they dismiss “chop-socky flicks” as a mindless stream of fights. Yuda (Iko Uwais) leaves his rural village for the city, hoping to open a school teaching Silat. Unfortunately, he discovers the address in Jakarta he had been given for a place to stay has been demolished, forcing him to spend his nights sleeping in a construction site and his days wande