Silat Silat Silat is a collective word for a class of indigenous martial arts from the geo-cultural area of Southeast Asia, more precisely in the Indonesian Archipelago, a region known locally as "Nusantara". It is traditionally practised in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, portions of the Philippines, southern part of Thailand and central part of Vietnam. There are hundreds of different styles ("aliran") and schools ("perguruan") but they tend to focus either on strikes, joint manipulation, weaponry, or some combination thereof. Silat is one of the sports included in the Southeast Asian Games and other region-wide competitions. Silat first made its debut
Silat are now considered generally poor depictions of the art. However, silat became increasingly prominent in Indonesian movies during the 70s, resulting in more professional and authentic depictions of the art in both historical films as well as action movies. Indonesian action stars Ratno Timoer and Advent Bangun were famous for 80s silat films such as "The Devil's Sword" and "Malaikat Bayangan". In Malaysia on the other hand, silat became increasingly rare on-screen during the subsequent decades. After the year 2000, silat was featured to varying degrees of importance in popular Malay movies such as "Jiwa Taiko", "Gong", "KL Gangster", "Pontianak