The Raid 2 (2014)

The Raid 2 (R) - Review

"Kung Fu Napoleon Complex X100"

When the film The Raid: Redemption hit US shores in 2011, many felt that Hollywood would have to "sit up and take notice", for here was a director, here was a star, here was a movie that finally showed the industry what people want in an action movie.  Just pure, non-stop bloody-white-knuckle action.  Now, 3 years later and the industry certainly hadn't noticed (they still believe in the older mummified action stars will lead the way back to genre gold), so here comes Welsh Director Gareth Evans and his stunt/fighting troupe of Malaysian daredevil martial artists to again put the record straight.  Evans and Co. even provide an overly complex script along with a more refined cinematic technique and beautifully boiled down fighting aesthetic to make up for the first film's short comings (and subsequent critical backlashes).

Rookie Supercop Rama just survived The Raid, and now is immediately drawn into a world of higher stakes and bigger criminals.  He goes deep undercover to a local prison to infiltrate the organization that had corrupted his brother and climb the ladder to the bigger bosses.  There he will rise from street level crime to find a rich corruption and thick grey area between law and justice and enough opponents and plot points to fill three Hollywood blockbusters, without the phony wire work that mars so many Asian epics.

The Raid 2 is first and foremost a sequel done correctly (according to Evans this was the movie he would have made first if the budget could have been scraped together).  It has elements and ideas taken from the first, expanded and improved.  It just doesn't do the same things over yet BIGGER, add more explosions and call it a day.  No, the fights here are less numerous (a testament to the first's enormous amount of combat not this one's lack), and yet more significant due to the precise build up.  In fact the first half hour is almost entirely a buildup of tension without release, and when it starts to finally let off steam it does so carefully.  They add in a spectacular car chase, subplots galore and new villains that aren't just paper-thin caricatures waiting to get kick-punched.

Some of it may be a bit excessive (the squeamish for one will choke on their popcorn at the amount of  realistic ultraviolence and gore).  Hollywood producers would have likely cut out the entire subplot of the Hobo Assassin for he plays almost no part in the main characters lives (and is basically a footnote to the overall plot).  Therein lies the problem with films now, the Hobo is introduced suddenly and without explanation as an incredibly dangerous and efficient killer, then has a long dinner scene with his estranged wife where they discuss their son, and just as suddenly is used as a pawn to ignite the gangs to war.  It makes little sense conventionally and that dinner scene almost feels like it belongs in a different film, and yet this is what Hollywood should be paying attention to.  The Hobo (played by Yayan Ruhian) is director Evan's fight coordinator for both films, and the dangerous look in his eye pairs with the sadness on his face solidifies the ennui of the entire film: most of us are the pawns who are pushed and sacrificed around the board as the Kings sit back and gloat.  This small, fragile part of a rock-hard action movie structure is indicative of the intelligence behind Raid 2 and spotlights the leaps and bounds it has made beyond the first entry, succeeding in showing up everything Hollywood has done in the past 10 years.  As our hero Rama battles foe after foe, goes through revelations and meets various martial arts archetypes and plot twists while giving up his young family in the name of justice, the fights get better and better and more frequent and more poignant with each knuckle crack.  Add to that a superb cinematic scope with slick photography, fight choreography that never feels rushed or unpolished (which was a problem in the first Raid), and you have a genuine Martial Arts Masterpiece starring a troupe of sincere Malaysian men with huge amounts of talents and guts all pulled together by a Welsh action fan.

The Raid 2 is a brutal truth, for it delivers quality AND quantity, and it's going to make it awful hard to sit through the average pap coming out at the corner Cineplex.

9 Aluminum Baseball Bats vs Hammers out of 10 (OUTSTANDING).