No Frills, Just Gills | Orang Ikan (2024) Review – With Eyes East

Directed by Mike Wiluan
Starring Dean Fujioka, Callum Woodhouse, Alan Maxson

I’d been following Orang Ikan for a while now, from an early Bloody Disgusting preview through to its retitling for U.S. distribution as “Monster Island.” Bleh. I’ve spent a nontrivial amount of time – washing dishes, staring into oblivion – pondering over which title to go with for the inevitable review on this site. It’s important! Reason one: this is a monster movie, and therefore a throwback. After the golden age of the 1980s, the spirit carried on in the Sci-Fi Channel Originals of my youth. These made-for-TV movies were sort of a keep-away game: “How much of this monster movie can be about anything other than the monster?” Special effects are expensive, and the movies were not. For me, they were exercises in frustration. Some off-screen kills in the beginning, a whole lot of bullshit in the middle, and the monster appears at the very end. And yet, I can’t deny how acutely interesting something called “Dinocroc” was to my 11-year-old brain. The second reason is that “Monster Island” is unspecific and vaguely patronizing, not that I can properly pronounce “Orang Ikan.” Now, this is a movie set during World War II, so the legendary fishman might not be the only monster lurking in the jungle.

After an Imperial Japanese prisoner ship goes down in a torpedo attack, two men wash up on the shore of an island in Southeast Asia: a British soldier and a Japanese traitor, both effectively POWs, and chained together by the ankles. Very quickly, they learn that they’ll have to work together, as the island is host to a vicious humanoid fish creature with a bad habit of rip-and-tearing. Oh, we’ve seen this before, and I don’t just mean Hell in the Pacific but its application to sci-fi: the spacefaring Enemy Mine and even as part of Kong: Skull Island. Here, the premise is more set dressing than setup. It is not the movie’s purpose to involve us in the emotions of allying with the enemy, nor to interrogate its thematic implications – never mind wed those implications to the ongoing monster issue. By the start of the third act, the British soldier, Bronson, declares “It’s either us or them!” with the force of a thesis statement, but in context, it’s not actually an argument. Okay, in the very end, the two threads do come together, relating to the fate of the monster, but by then, it’s too late – and a bit illogical.

It’s just, the movie opens with text accompanied by black-and-white archival footage about these real-world POW ships – dubbed “hell ships” – and while that’s where the story begins, it has no bearing on the pursuant 80 minutes. I mean, it’s nice to learn new things, I guess. Is this a slight? Does this matter? It should, but not really. In terms of being a throwback, this truly is a “monster movie,” because there’s nothing else to it. No frills, no allegories like in monster-island brethren Sweetheart, for better or worse. And in that department – the entire department – we have two final aspects to consider: the monster, and the kills. I’m happy to report that the Orang Ikan has way more screen-time than the average Sci-Fi Channel monster, and it’s rendered entirely with practical effects. Your mileage on the creature design may vary, as it’s a non-radical interpretation of the fishman but with very sharp teeth (and somewhat Grey alien eyes). While not the most convincing effects – I resent that “convincing” is the most important consideration for some – it is a lively specimen. Specifically, it’s a huge dick.

This is the other half of a good creature: the character. It’s decidedly not the tragic, misunderstood native of Creature from the Black Lagoon or The Shape of Water, but a wild animal full of rage. I don’t even know if it is indigenous to the environment at all. Aside from looking like an alien, it gets into a fight with another apex predator and is constantly screeching into the sky rather than trying to blend in. Surprisingly, there’s no in-universe folklore to give it mystique, other than a Southeast Asian POW shouting “Orang Ikan!” before getting pounced. I mean, this is a monster who really likes to pull people’s heads off, and tears at flesh like gift wrap on a present.

A less ridiculous version of the smart sharks from Deep Blue Sea, perhaps; the monster with enough intelligence to be sadistic, and the gore is accordant. That goes for all the bloodshed in the film, like the chaos on the ship in the beginning and the fist-fight between Bronson and his Japanese compatriot, Saito. Included are at least two throat punches, establishing off the bat that there’s gonna be a tactility to the violence, even the promise – unfulfilled – of consequences as well. This is also around when we establish the film’s concessions to a low budget. For an ambitious genre picture, there’s got to be a give-and-take. In this case, it’s overactive editing, which does more to conceal the creature early on than the surprisingly generous camera coverage.

For a movie about two people who don’t speak the same language, film language suddenly becomes paramount. Theoretically. In practice, Bronson and Saito pretty much speak their own languages and workably understand each other. They aren’t thrown into scenarios made suspenseful by the language barrier, or trust issues. After the big, gory set piece in the middle of the film, we have a reset where the two heroes are separated and it’s kind of man versus nature, survival on the island. But again, it’s straightforward: climb a waterfall, cross this body of water. We’re not talking Tomb Raider 2013 levels of set piece. I mean, that’s what I wanted, right? Just the monsters, ma’am. Well, just as a good monster design is a guy in a rubber suit until it’s imbued with character, a good monster movie needs a bit more than what Orang Ikan provides. A title as generic as “Monster Island,” unfortunately, fits.