Asian Import

The Raid 2

I’m going to confess something to you all…I prefer foreign action movies a little bit more than I like American action movies.  Films like Hero (Jet Li), The Killer (Chow Yun-Fat), and even The Transporter (Jason Statham). For some reason the chorography in foreign action films, feels more like an interpretable dance than just people beating the crap out of each other. Now another foreign action film has graced the American screens in this year’s sequel to the hugely popular The Raid: Redemption.

The Raid 2: Berandal begins mere hours after the previous films leaves off.  This time around, Rama is recruited to go deep undercover to see how far police corruption goes and how it is linked to the local organized crime families. Rama is “arrested” and chooses to become close to a boss’ son, Uco. After saving Uco’s life, Rama is invited into the “lion’s den” so his work can begin.

After the success of it predecessor, The Raid 2 is on a much grander scale. The first film takes place inside of one building for about 98% of the time, whereas this film as many sets and locales in  Indonesia. As with the larger scale comes a larger plot which works very well. Now I come to the action scenes...these were amazing. Though sometimes overly graphic, the fight scenes/action scenes are some of the best that I have ever seen. I think the only thing that is lacking from this film is the acting itself. Like many action movies, the acting can be somewhat stiff and bland.

With this film, Gareth Evans has proven that he is no fluke. I think that Evans has proven that he can film a fight scene. He is able to get in the middle without using “shaky cam”. I personally am very appreciative of this because I think that type of filming can be overdone and nauseating. Evans also shows the audience that he can film a pretty good car chase as well. To me, it looks like Evans is Indonesia’s version of Tarantino.

This film lives up to the hype of the original film. I was very excited to learn of the sequel and Evans didn’t disappoint at all. If you love martial art films or just action films in general that please check out the original and this film.

Verdict: Very Much Worth Your Time