The Raid 2
Directed by: Gareth Evans
Written by: Gareth Evans
Starring: Iko Uwais, Julie Estelle, Yayan Ruhian, Arifin Putra, Donny Alamsyah, Oka Antara, Alex Abbad, Tio Pakusodewo, Very Tri Yulisman, Ken'ichi Endô
Action/Crime/Thriller - 150 min
Written by: Gareth Evans
Starring: Iko Uwais, Julie Estelle, Yayan Ruhian, Arifin Putra, Donny Alamsyah, Oka Antara, Alex Abbad, Tio Pakusodewo, Very Tri Yulisman, Ken'ichi Endô
Action/Crime/Thriller - 150 min
The Raid: Redemption (2012) was one of the most violent films I have ever seen, and then I saw The Raid 2. With characters named Baseball Bat Man and Hammer Girl, you know you are in for an action film located on an elevated plane, a hyper-violent, bone cracking, blood spurting shotgun blast to the skull sort of plane. With a noticeably larger budget than its predecessor and a script containing actual plot and dialogue, The Raid 2 presents its giddy audience with the level of gore they expect, but wraps it in a story this time.
2012’s The Raid: Redemption achieves a certain cult status level because it is 101 minutes of floor by floor kung fu buttkickery. There is no time between scenes of unbelievable mayhem and massacre to slow the pacing down to discuss why we’re here and what we’re doing. I respect everything about that. The plot catches up to us in The Raid 2. Now we have a two and a half hour film full of showy camera angles, solid production design, and bona fide talking.
Beginning a mere two hours after the first movie ends, Rama (Iko Uwais), our hero, is recruited to go undercover inside one of Jakarta’s ruling crime syndicates to bring it down from the inside. To gain their trust, he is arrested, is a main actor in two glorious prison brawls, and emerges as sort of a protector to the crime boss’s son, Uco (Arifin Putra). The prison fights are where you will first notice the cinematography.
The opening fight is our boy Rama versus what looks like the rest of the prison population. He is alone in a bathroom stall where the camera stares at the flimsy lock as a screw falls out due to the pounding on the other side. Once the door shatters, the camera leaps into the middle of a tidal wave of flailing appendages and lightning-fast punches and kicks. Rama dislocates joints and sockets with ease while piling crumpled bodies into the stall while the camera sometimes is hand-held jolting and jostling around and other times calmly observes the chaos from the ceiling. The second prison fight takes place in a large, square prison yard caked in about a foot of mud. The speed slows down showcasing individual mud flakes flying off a smashed jaw or speeds up blinding the audience with approximately 50 body blows to one rib cage before the victim becomes just another addition to the immobile mass already lying motionless in the mud.
Cinematographers Matt Flannery and Dimas Imam Subhono incorporate what they learned from filming close-in marital arts from the first film and launch it into the stratosphere this time around. As for the story, it mostly follows The Departed as Rama tries to find his place in the gang, stay alive, and keep tabs on everybody. There are multiple double crosses, back stabbings (literal and metaphorical), and distinct bad guys are introduced that we all know Rama will have to tackle sooner or later. Baseball Bat Man and Hammer Girl are merely two of them.
Even though there is far more going on in The Raid 2, a certain amount of magic has disappeared from the first film. The Raid: Redemption was the little martial arts movie that could. The Raid 2 is that gargantuan martial arts spectacular aiming to prove the first guy wasn’t a fluke. There are rumors The Raid 3 is already in the works and if true, it will have even more baggage on its shoulders to take on.
Director Gareth Evans created a distinct niche in the action/martial arts genre with over-the-top and intensely choreographed fight scenes. Action fans have seen gorgeous choreography before, but never so much of it stacked one on top of the other for so many minutes on end. If you are a fan of martial arts movies, I will go ahead and ask you the question everyone else has already asked, “How have you not seen this movie yet?”
2012’s The Raid: Redemption achieves a certain cult status level because it is 101 minutes of floor by floor kung fu buttkickery. There is no time between scenes of unbelievable mayhem and massacre to slow the pacing down to discuss why we’re here and what we’re doing. I respect everything about that. The plot catches up to us in The Raid 2. Now we have a two and a half hour film full of showy camera angles, solid production design, and bona fide talking.
Beginning a mere two hours after the first movie ends, Rama (Iko Uwais), our hero, is recruited to go undercover inside one of Jakarta’s ruling crime syndicates to bring it down from the inside. To gain their trust, he is arrested, is a main actor in two glorious prison brawls, and emerges as sort of a protector to the crime boss’s son, Uco (Arifin Putra). The prison fights are where you will first notice the cinematography.
The opening fight is our boy Rama versus what looks like the rest of the prison population. He is alone in a bathroom stall where the camera stares at the flimsy lock as a screw falls out due to the pounding on the other side. Once the door shatters, the camera leaps into the middle of a tidal wave of flailing appendages and lightning-fast punches and kicks. Rama dislocates joints and sockets with ease while piling crumpled bodies into the stall while the camera sometimes is hand-held jolting and jostling around and other times calmly observes the chaos from the ceiling. The second prison fight takes place in a large, square prison yard caked in about a foot of mud. The speed slows down showcasing individual mud flakes flying off a smashed jaw or speeds up blinding the audience with approximately 50 body blows to one rib cage before the victim becomes just another addition to the immobile mass already lying motionless in the mud.
Cinematographers Matt Flannery and Dimas Imam Subhono incorporate what they learned from filming close-in marital arts from the first film and launch it into the stratosphere this time around. As for the story, it mostly follows The Departed as Rama tries to find his place in the gang, stay alive, and keep tabs on everybody. There are multiple double crosses, back stabbings (literal and metaphorical), and distinct bad guys are introduced that we all know Rama will have to tackle sooner or later. Baseball Bat Man and Hammer Girl are merely two of them.
Even though there is far more going on in The Raid 2, a certain amount of magic has disappeared from the first film. The Raid: Redemption was the little martial arts movie that could. The Raid 2 is that gargantuan martial arts spectacular aiming to prove the first guy wasn’t a fluke. There are rumors The Raid 3 is already in the works and if true, it will have even more baggage on its shoulders to take on.
Director Gareth Evans created a distinct niche in the action/martial arts genre with over-the-top and intensely choreographed fight scenes. Action fans have seen gorgeous choreography before, but never so much of it stacked one on top of the other for so many minutes on end. If you are a fan of martial arts movies, I will go ahead and ask you the question everyone else has already asked, “How have you not seen this movie yet?”
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