I’ve been a fan of martial arts films for decades. From the Jeet Kune Do stylings of Bruce Lee’s films to the ballet-like Kung Fu of the Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers films to the high-flying Wuxia battles of films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers.
When The Raid: Redemption exploded in theaters in 2011, it brought a whole new level of chaos and brutality to fight scenes, dragging the fantasy/dreamlike martial arts wizardry of the Wuxia films down into a miasma of fists, mud and blood. I remember being awestruck by the way the film made it look realistic that a single masterful fighter could quickly take out a multitude of opponents, but not walk out of it totally unscathed. That film (and its follow-up The Raid 2) breathed new life into martial arts films.
Now we have The Furious (directed by Kenji Tanagaki and written by Mak Tin-shu, Lei Zhilong, Shum Kwan-sin and Frank Hui) which, amazingly, takes the battle scenes of The Raid: Redemption up a notch. There’s a great fight scene 5 minutes into the film and the action never lets up after that, the brawls are lightning fast and vicious. What makes the film so thrilling is that different characters use different martial arts styles against each other, ranging from Kung Fu to Judo and even the Indonesian fighting style of Pencak Silat.
The outcome of all these styles is a LOT of broken bones. If you take a shot of whiskey every time a bone breaks in The Furious, congratulations, you’ll be drunk as a skunk by the time the end credits roll. The plot of the film is razor-thin, but who watches martial arts movies for detailed plots?
A city in Southeast Asia is plagued by a child trafficking ring, with children disappearing every day. When journalist Matia (played by Jeeja Yanin) investigates the ring, she disappears, and her journalist husband Navin (Joe Taslim) becomes obsessed with finding her, no matter what it takes. Simultaneously in another part of the city, Rainy (Yang Enyou), the young daughter of mute handyman Wang Wei (Xie Maio) is kidnapped by the ring, setting Wang off on his own quest to find her. The two men inevitably run into each other and join forces to rescue their loved ones and stop the trafficking ring once and for all.
Navin and Wang’s personalities are so different that The Furious comes dangerously close at times to being a “buddy film”. Thankfully, it avoids that, and both actors do a great job with their roles, with Navin being a more smart-ass, flashy, fast-talking guy and Wang, who’s mute, being more meditative and cerebral.
Young actress Yang Enyou plays Wang’s daughter with a mixture of spunkiness and maturity, imbuing pathos into what could have been just a typical throwaway kid’s role. She’s had a hard life in her few years and she conveys that pain well.
Actor Joey Iwanaga is insane and insanely good as main villain Paklung, who initially looks nerdy and ineffectual, with his soft-spoken nature, glasses and prim suit. But when he loses his temper, watch out! He’s a master fighter and psychopath. He reminded me of Ken Lo’s John, the final boss in Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master 2, who had the same nerdy look and formidable martial arts style (watch out for those kicks!). But where John is a cool customer, Paklung is a special kind of crazy, with murder being his default setting.
Several battles have one or two people fighting an army of opponents and it all looks convincing. When Wang takes out 6 guys in a fight, you believe it’s possible because he actually uses some of the fighters against the other ones. You realize that being in a group doesn’t necessarily give you an advantage when one of your buddies is thrown into you, knocking you over like a bowling pin while you get a crushing follow-up kick to the head.
Some of the fights border on being hilarious, especially one of the later fights where one of the bad guys gets confused and starts attacking his allies as well as his opponents, and I almost lost track of who was fighting who (but in a good way).
If you’re a fan of martial arts films, you need to see The Furious on the big screen. It’s constantly thrilling, surprisingly touching in parts and by the end of it you may be more exhausted than the actors!
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