Kang Mak” (originally titled, Kang Mak from Pee Mak) is a 2025 Indonesian film directed by Herwin Novianto. The movie is headlined by ino G. Bastian as Makmur, Marsha Timothy as Sari, Indro Warkop as Supra, Tora Sudiro as Jaka, and more. “Kang Mak” tells the story of Makmur, a soldier who returns to his home not knowing that his wife has died, and now lives as a spirit.
Kang Mak (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Who are Makmur & Sari?
Makmur has been at war for months, defending his country’s borders from a foreign invasion. Yet, even with bullets flying around him, his thoughts often call to his beautiful, pregnant wife back home. Before he left, Makmur promised her that the mission wouldn’t take long and that he’d return before she even noticed he was gone. Life in the army barracks is far from easy. Bullets have claimed the lives of many soldiers. They have been left with lifelong disabilities. Some have gone deaf, some have lost their vision, and others have lost limbs when grenades exploded near them. Despite everything, the soldiers fight bravely, and in the end, the war is won.
After the war, Makmur and his friends—Supra, Jaka, Solah, and Fajril—set off in a small rowboat, heading back to their respective villages to reunite with the loved ones they left behind. When Makmur arrives at his village, he can’t help but notice an eerie silence there. It feels like the entire place has been abandoned.
The cheerful sounds of children playing, which once filled the air from morning to noon, are nowhere to be heard. As Makmur approaches his house, the boatman gets uncomfortable. He is spooked by the house, and hurriedly drops everyone off and rows away, as if the village is haunted. Inside the house, Makmur finally meets his wife, Sari, and their newborn child. The baby was born while he was away fighting. Sari, the most beautiful woman in the village, had even won the village beauty contest three years in a row.
Why Do The Villagers Fear Makmur?
Things take a strange turn when Jaka starts having unsettling dreams about a ghost. Meanwhile, no matter how hard Makmur tries, he can’t find a boatman willing to take him to the market to buy fish. Left with no other choice, Makmur and his friends row the boat themselves. At the market, things get even stranger. It seems people are terrified of Makmur. Whatever he asks for be it spices, coffee, sugar, fruits, or fish they hand over without hesitation. They even refuse to take payment, saying, “We don’t want to anger Sari.” Later, Makmur and his friends stop at the village bar for drinks. There they meet the local eccentric who hints that something is wrong and tells Makmur, that he is living with a ghost.
Makmur brushes off the shaman’s words as a random joke. But his friends grow curious and decide to find out if Sari is truly human or something else. While wandering in the fields, Fajri finds a skeleton hand. However, before he can share this with anyone, he’s stung by a swarm of bees. Once the group is convinced that Sari has indeed died and that the woman in Makmur’s house is her spirit, the group decides to tell him the truth but finds it impossible.
One evening, when they’re alone, Sari confronts the group and pleads with them to stop interfering, saying all she wants is to live happily with Makmur. For one final time, the group tries to convince Makmur that his wife is a ghost. But instead of believing them, Makmur is heartbroken and feels betrayed by his closest friends, and tells them to leave at first light.
Who is the Real Ghost? Sari or Makmur?
A few days earlier, Fajril had found a skeleton hand buried in the jungle, wearing a wedding ring. He believes it is Sari’s body. Later, Fajril notices something odd. He sees that Makmur isn’t wearing his wedding ring. This leads him to think that the body was actually Makmur’s. Fajril began to suspect that Makmur might have died during the war and that his body had been secretly buried in the yard without anyone telling Sari. Could it be that Makmur was the ghost all along?
No, despite Fajril’s theories, the truth was far more obvious. Sari was the real ghost. She had died at the start of the story. The woman living with Makmur was her spirit. As for the moment when Makmur screamed after Jaka threw sticky black rice at him, it wasn’t because he was a ghost. The rice had gotten into a fresh wound from the war that was still healing, causing him pain.
Eventually, Makmur also learns that his wife, Sari, is a ghost. He and his friends head to the shaman’s house for help, only to find that the woman has already died. They seek advice from another shaman, who tells them there are four ways to defeat a ghost: black sticky rice, a garden of flowers, a wooden sword imbued with powerful spells to send the ghost to the afterlife, and a rope coated with chicken blood to protect humans from ghost attacks.
The shaman creates a protective circle, warning them that as long as they stay inside the barrier, no ghost can harm them. When Sari arrives, the shaman tries to banish her, claiming she belongs in hell. None of his methods work. Soon, he abandons Makmur and his friends after becoming both frustrated and fearful.
Kang Mak (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
What Becomes of Makmur and Sari’s Love Story?
After the shaman leaves, Sari ropes all of Makmur’s friends and accuses them of trying to destroy her happiness with Makmur, despite her having requested them many times not to do so. Now Sari plans to get rid of all four of them so she can live peacefully with her husband but before she can kill them, Makmur stops her. He reminds her that these friends once saved his life during the war and pleads with her to let go of her anger.
Makmur then looks at Sari and tells her he loves her deeply and the only way they can truly be together is if she takes him with her to the spirit world. Sari refuses, saying she could never hurt him, let alone kill him. That’s when Makmur reveals the truth that he has always known she was a ghost. However, the thought of losing her again was so unbearable that he chose to go along with everything.
Makmur didn’t care when the villagers called him foolish for living with a ghost. He would have gladly eaten insects and dry leaves for the rest of his life if it meant staying by Sari’s side. For Makmur, his place was wherever Sari was. As the story comes to an end, Makmur decides to spend the rest of his life with the ghost of his beloved wife. Fifty years later, their home is turned into a museum where tourists come to learn about the love story of Sari and Makmur. It is said that the spirits of the couple still appear in every photo taken, posing together with Solah, Fajrul, Jaka, and Supra.
