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Short Film Review: Fish Balls (2024) by Anwar Johari Ho

Fish Balls image of a topless man with several hands on his face and at his neck
"Did you cook fish head soup again?"

In the past, we have covered multiple shorts of Malaysian , but the truth is, that “” is definitely his most daring. The film premiered in Sea Shorts and is also finding its way in Jogja-Netpac this year.

Fish Balls review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative

The film begins with a young man in shock, as he is about to cut a piece of his genitals that have been transformed into a snakehead fish. His agony is palpable, but soon his voyeuristic past takes over, with him watching a woman in secret, which results in his fish member ‘becoming alive’. A bit later a woman appears, and a notion about his becoming violent with her is suggested, before the movie takes a completely different turn, as the man becomes more and more a fish.

Anwar Johari directs a 13-minute short which combines a number of extreme aspects, ranging from the appalling, to the perverse, to the sexual, the absurd, the crude, the grotesque and the surreal, in a package, however, that works quite well, additionally because all this excessiveness is occasionally weirdly funny.

The many close ups on the protagonist and his overall acting, which functions much like a performance, as does the majority of the film actually, adds to aforementioned elements, with being truly imposing in all the different aspects of his character he presents here.

The appearance of a woman adds a bit of context to the story, perhaps implying that what is happening to the protagonist is a punishment for his crimes, although the very ending definitely muddies the waters. Perhaps one could say the director refers to the concept of women who were abused returning to their abusers, but the presentation is not exactly clear.

in the role is also quite good, as both the object of lust and a woman tormented who is struggling between her wants and reality. The interactions of the two are particularly entertaining, with the chemistry of the actors being palpable.

Expectedly, the film leans significantly to its visuals, and DP Kiefer Yu, with the help of SFX does a great job in presenting all the aforementioned elements, including the voyeurism one, which is particularly intriguing in its presentation. The scene with the hands, both the many and that of the female protagonist, will definitely stay on mind as the ones that fully encompass the aesthetics of the movie. Andrew Joseph’s editing adds to the overall atmosphere here with the occasionally rather abrupt cuts, while the relatively fast pace suits the movie to perfection.

Although definitely not for everyone, and definitely not exactly clear on its comments, “Fish Balls” emerges as a rather captivating short, with the audiovisual and directorial approach to the story and the two protagonists elevating it much above any of its issues.

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

Panagiotis (Panos) Kotzathanasis is a film critic and reviewer, specialized in Asian Cinema. He is the owner and administrator of Asian Movie Pulse, one of the biggest portals dealing with Asian cinema. He is a frequent writer in Hancinema, Taste of Cinema, and his texts can be found in a number of other publications including SIRP in Estonia, Film.sk in Slovakia, Asian Dialogue in the UK, Cinefil in Japan and Filmbuff in India.

Since 2019, he cooperates with Thessaloniki Cinematheque in Greece, curating various tributes to Asian cinema. He has participated, with video recordings and text, on a number of Asian movie releases, for Spectrum, Dekanalog and Error 4444. He has taken part as an expert on the Erasmus+ program, “Asian Cinema Education”, on the Asian Cinema Education International Journalism and Film Criticism Course.

Apart from a member of FIPRESCI and the Greek Cinema Critics Association, he is also a member of NETPAC, the Hellenic Film Academy and the Online Film Critics Association.

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