Lay Jin Ong’s “Abang Adik” is a true-blue tearjerker. It packs a touching story of siblinghood within the dire fabric of undocumented experience. The brothers and the routine tragedies that overtake their lives are emblematic of scores of citizens who don’t have official documents that the authorities necessitate a dignified agency to survive on. Without the papers, one stands to lose all rights and be immediately carted off to prison.
The structures have no remedy for such distress-mired ‘non-citizens,’ whose personhood and basic claim to a free, self-regulated life would be wholly stripped away. Set in Malaysia, the film traces stories of stateless individuals from various nationalities, immigrants occupying a subclass status as they pursue the coveted ID that will grant them unquestionable citizenship and a safe pass to a life of freedom from fear.
There’s a clampdown on these lives that keep trying all means to assert their identity. The road to verification is fraught with endless hurdles, as are middlemen promising a fake ID that will go undetected by the authorities. The assurance lifts the hearts for a while until the blow of betrayal kicks in, and the community that bandies together gets splintered. Yet it is not entirely hopelessly grim as few connections made are stronger and can test the threads of a crackdown.
DOP Kartik Vijay depicts the squalor of the stateless lives with all its ragged decrepitude and how the spaces seem to crush down on its precarious residents. There’s a constant threat of being apprehended and put behind bars. Grave peril can pop up at any time. It’s a life of instability and danger. Within the cramped situations, people restlessly forage for moments of joy and community.
Abang Adik (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The film revolves around the lives of two orphan brothers. There is no linkage in blood relations but Abang ( Kang Ren Wu), had taken Adik (Jack Tan) under his care when he saw him weeping alone in the street. As they grew together through the years, they became inseparably linked in adoration and deep care for one another. Both are fiercely protective of each other. They have their share of tiffs but eventually lean back on one another. Money (Kim Wang Tan), a trans neighbor, acts as a maternal figure in their lives. She has actively looked out for them throughout their growing up.
Abang has faith in official government procedures for obtaining an ID, whereas Adik is wholly disillusioned by the process. They have been trying for years and running up against disappointment and rejection. Abang is consistently reassured by a woman from an NGO, Jia En (Serene Liam), that she is trying with all her might to procure him the ID. It is when Abang discovers Adik has been doing shady work with a hoodlum and swindling immigrants in the hope of preparing fake IDs for them Abang is extremely heartbroken. He feels massively let down by his brother. As a believer in sincerity, he is jolted because his brother has been so unscrupulous. However, Abang’s rage at his brother gradually melts away soon in the tide of love that binds them closely.
The tragedy that ensues rips the thread of concerted normalcy in their lives. Jia En is persistent in fighting for the brother’s cause. She stumbles across Adik’s father’s whereabouts and is thrilled because that’d help and ease Adik’s process of getting his ID. Abang’s would still be a long, uncertain, fraught process. Joyous at her discovery, Jia rushes to the brothers’ place. However, only Adik is there. When she informs him of the new information, he doesn’t respond with warmth but intense, severe hate. He would rather have nothing to do with his father. She insists it will smoothen his application process, but it has no effect on his fit of fury.
Adik’s fatal flaw is his irascible, short-tempered inclinations. Once he has flown into a fit of indignation, he loses control of human impulses. In such a moment with Jia, he goes violently overboard. She accuses him of a lack of consideration and sensitivity and urges him to think rationally. He rams her brutally against the table. It is later revealed that she didn’t actually die of the blow right then. An overwhelmed, panicking Adik seeks the help of Abang, who ultimately suffocates her to death.
Both flee from their place and escape to the countryside. Abang tries to leave Adik behind. Finally, he disappears without informing Adik. A horrified Adik discovers from a TV news alert that his brother has surrendered to the police, confessing to the killing of Jia and adopting all responsibility. When Adik confronts Abang in prison as to why he did that, the latter beseeches him to just focus on his father, get the ID done, and start afresh.
Abang Adik (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
What happens to the two brothers?
The court sentences Abang to death. A remorseful Adik tries all he can to get a human rights lawyer, but it is futile. He turns into a sober man, taking up multiple respectable, transparent jobs, and abandons all his murky dealings. He completely switches his personality. Being acutely aware of his helplessness in rescuing Abang from a death sentence, Adik embraces responsibilities and surges into a life of integrity that he has been eluding and which had caused such heartburn in his brother. He knows he must change into a wholly new person, cognizant of his tragic situation, and accept what Abang had been insistent on.
A few days before Abang’s hanging, the brothers meet for a final time, and Adik wishes to take up the role of the elder brother if a second chance could ever be given to their bond. The final scene gestures to the reunion between Adik and his father as he lands up at the restaurant where the latter works. Despite Abang being gone, the ending manages to underscore Adik becoming and embracing what Abang had so long desired. A future of happy, stable possibility is brightly promised.
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