This City is a Battlefield

A lush and stylish period thriller, Mouly Surya’s fifth feature This City is a Battlefield (Perang Kota) recreates life in Jakarta in 1946 under colonial occupation as resistance fighters struggle against a brutal army that is still under Dutch control. Violin teacher Isa is tasked with an assassination attempt with the help of his friend Hazil, but Hazil has found himself falling for Isa’s wife
Fatimah. Book-ended by visceral and impressively-staged action sequences, this simmering and sensual thriller is about ideological and emotional struggles.