Monday, September 1, 2014

Movie of the Week – The Raid 2

This week’s movie: The Raid 2 (2014)

Following the events of The Raid: Redemption, Rama again goes undercover to try and help bring down a large crime syndicate in Jakarta and uncover police corruption.

Like The Raid, The Raid 2 is also written and directed by Gareth Evans – and, he is currently working on The Raid 3 (there is also an American remake of The Raid underway). Evans worked with composers Aria Prayogi, Joseph Trapanese, and Fajar Yuskemal and cinematographers Matt Flannery and Dimas Imam Subhono. The brilliant fights are choreographed by Yayan Ruhian, Larnell Stovall, and Iko Uwais.

The film stars Iko Uwais and features Arifin Putra, Tio Pakusodewo, Oka Antara, Alex Abbad, Cecep Arif Rahman, Julie Estelle, Very Tri Yulisman, and Yayan Ruhian.

Basically, The Raid 2 is a film built on amazing action scenes with stunning fire choreography, which is often very brutal yet has a certain compelling beauty to it as well. It is unlike anything in Hollywood action films, setting a new standard for brilliant fight scenes (in pretty much every way), even surpassing the great work done in The Raid. Simply put, if you like martial arts films built around great fight scenes then this is a must-see. If you do not then it is not. I was blown away by its action senses (just for some reference, my favorite martial arts film is probably Jet Li’s Fist of Legend – I do like most of Jet Li’s and Jackie Chan’s Asian martial arts films, as do we all).


Trailer: Here
Available on: Blu-ray and Video On-Demand

No comments:

Post a Comment