Mojoku Hilang! Review: This Feel-Good Malaysian Comedy About A Missing Cow Is Full Of Kampung Charm

Mojoku Hilang! (PG)

Starring Adipati Dolken, Mimi Lana, Wan Hanafi Su, Tony Eusoff, Gambit Saifullah

Directed by Min Lim

Malaysia's famous celebrity cow, named Mojo, goes missing in this agreeable agrarian comedy.

Not La Luna charming. But pleasant and cosy enough.

“The whole of Malaysia is in an uproar,” take-charge gal Ayu (Mimi Lana), tells her farmer-dad, Atan (La Luna's Wan Hanafi Su), when the celeb creature pops up unexpectedly right inside their kampong house.

Ayu hates her former city life and is now living a simpler one among the open fields in Perlis. So this, er cow-nap, is quite a moo-ving shock.

I'm not giving any spoilers away. Since straight from the start, the cow is already milk-product famous as a viral sensation, adored mascot and all-popular marketing brand which make jiuhu folks swoon.

Me? I can't tell one black-and-white moo-er from another. But gotta say — the beast is a fine-looking and coolly unperturbed walking burger queen. Apparently 25 cows waved their tails in this tale.

Okay, this isn't Okja (pig) or Pop Aye (elephant)-style quality time with an animal. I mean, Mojo does actually disappear for a good part of this show, presumably to chow on yummy grass offscreen. A pity because there's comedy beef to be cooked. A scene here about filming a ransom video by pointing a toy gun to the cow's big head is a hoot.

Reason is, this pic is really more about the people milling around the heifer in bucolic farm country up in the northern plains. What's basically hilang (Malay for “lost”), or to be precise, going to be missing here, isn't the cow. But Malaysia's original, authentic and very happy kampong life. The uncomplicated, unhurried sort where “home is the people we love”.

Long story short, a trio of senior-citizen bad boys, led by the cheeky, aforementioned Uncle Atan, from Semerah Padi Village, Perlis's oldest dairy district, kidnaps Mojo to stop its ruthless conglomerate owner in KL, an “evil company” called Moo Magic, from acquiring their land one by one.

You know those greedy bastards are evil because it's headed by a cartoonishly high-strung Dato (Kong Tao's Tony Eusoff) who sends his farmer whisperer-charmer, Adi (Indonesian actor Adipati Dolken), to sweet-talk the holdouts into signing over their properties. Plotting to usurp Adi in kicking out the farmers is the flick's resident baddie, Pian, Adi's office partner and Dato's flunking son, who's played with comical gushy gusto by Gambit Saifullah.

Business-strategy genius Adi, himself the son of a farmer, immerses himself locally and secretly by pretending to be Adam, eager farmhand who's newly arrived in the countryside. Man, it's the biggest lie since, well, that letter lady in Dear You. But with sneakier intentions.

Naturally, Adi/Adam's conscience is pricked when he falls for hottie-in-the-padi Ayu, fresh air, free fertiliser (I guess), and the life-changing meaningful simplicity of the Great Outdoors way of farm life. He goes from corporate lizard to native son in this predictable, chirpy script penned by head writer, Honey Ahmad.

Yep, it's the old big-gobble-small story. But this time, it's also a merry-Mal story of colourful, eccentric neighbours uniting against colourless, soulless tyranny right across the Causeway in our friendly neighbour's land. Fascinating.

And on the bovine grapevine thus, Mojoku Hilang! is enjoyable light-hearted fare that's easy to watch, full of likeable characters, one nonchalant cow, plus truly great green scenery which instils a real yearning for the romantic rustic life.

Sans mozzies, of course. This movie makes you wanna sit on a lovely covered wooden platform in the rain looking out to the misty fields just like the lovebirds here. But, excuse me, do we need to bring Mopiko?

One drawback — debut director Min Lim (exec-producer of HBO's Asian version of the Swedish/Danish series, The Bridge) needs to trim the fat off to make this tighter. And maybe add in more endemic tension in the manner in which Hanafi Su's religious zealot in La Luna made that film so memorable.

Good thing that Hanafi Su here again is a terrific presence working well with Lana's uncowed Ayu, no pun intended, and Dolken's deceitful but still-good cow guy Adi.

In this cattle battle, they, along with a bunch of amiable enciks and makciks, put the charm simply back into the farm. (3/5 stars) now in cinemas

Photo: Mocha Chai Laboratories/Astro Shaw/Double Vision