The Raid 2: Berandal

Title: The Raid 2: Berandal

Director: Gareth Evans

Released: 2014

Starring: Iwo Uwais, Arifin Putra, Tio Pakusadewo, Oka Antara, Alex Abbad, Cecep Arif Rahman, Julie Estelle, Very Tri Yulisman, Ryuhei Matsuda, Kenichi Endo, Kazuki Kitamura, Yayan Ruhian, Cok Simbara

Plot: Picking up the story several hours after the end of the first film, Rama (Uwais) meets with Bunawar (Simbara) the head of an anti-corruption task force who tasks Rama with going undercover to expose those at the top of the Jakarta criminal underworld, following the murder of his brother by self-made gangster Bejo (Abbad).

Review: While the threats of an American remake of the original film continues unabated, much like those which surround a remake of “Battle Royale” the original film remains even now a high benchmark for martial arts movies / action movies on the whole, let alone for Evans himself to try and top which arguably is exactly what he has done here with this ambitious sequel.

Expanding on the world he introduced us with in the first film, here he broadens the scope of the film to this time take in the whole of the Jakarta underworld as Rama’s story this time is just one of many in play in this gangland saga as Rama soon finds himself caught in the middle of a war between the two crime families. The Jakarta crime family run by Bangun (Pakusadewo) and whose hot-headed son Uco (Putra) Rama is tasked with befriending as an entry point into the underworld he’s been tasked with investigating. On the opposite side we have Boss Goto (Endo) who heads up the local Yakuza faction who in turn mix things up and like so many aspects gives us something else that audiences haven’t seen before. Originally envisioned as the first film in the series only for budget issues to force Evans to scale down the production to the claustrophobic corridors of the original while he put this script to one side, reworking it slightly when this film was given the green light, which in a strange twist of fate only seems to be for the better as this works a lot better as the middle film of a proposed trilogy than the first.

While the scope of the film and not to mention numerous plot threads in play can at times feel slightly overwhelming, Evans manages to bring it all together for the finale while the films generous run time helps each of the characters to be developed beyond being just cut out villains, though some of the more colourful henchmen such and the dual claw hammer welding Hammer Girl and the baseball bat welding Baseball Bat Man are given just surface colour to highlight their relationship with the majority of their appearances here being to highlight their particular and unquestionably brutal techniques. While this might not be a huge issue, it did however when it came to the Hobo hitman Prakoso played here by returning fight choreographer Yayan Ruhian who also memorably played “Mad Dog” in the first film and here gives the polar opposite of that character with his dishevelled clothes and beard he carries out hits for Bangun with deadly efficiently with his machete, while we see that he only does this work for his son who currently lives with his ex-wife a background teased by Evans in a scene showing the frosty relationship he has with his wife, who refuses him access to their son while belittling his appearance no doubt the result of any money he makes being given to his son. Even though he is a minor character he’s still one I would have liked to have seen more of.

This time we get to see more of Rama’s homelife to add to what we saw in the introduction of the last film, here used to emphasis the stress and loneliness that Rama has to fight while maintaining his cover, especially when he is originally promised that he will only be under for a couple of months which soon turns into a couple of years. Needless to say Uwais is more than capable of taking us on this emotional journey, rather than your usual action hero who care more about the action elements than selling the drama, something which was a concern with this film being more drama heavy than the first, but Uwais again gives a great performance so that we truly believe that he is gone through hell when we see his broken expression at the end of the film, not that it takes awhole lot of selling when you look at what he has to go through in the finale.

He action scenes are unquestionably once more the selling point for the film as Evans sets out to not only top what he did with the first film especially combined with such inventive and impressive camerawork, clearly aiming to ensure with each action sequence that he is giving us something that we haven’t seen before. This time not only increasing the spectacle of the fight scenes, which are noticeably one of the areas to increase in scale, while Evans also turns his hand to crafting several thrilling vehicle based sequences including a jaw dropping car chase involving multiple vehicles and a heated brawl taking place while this happens. As I mentioned earlier in this review fight choreographer Yayan Ruhian returns to give us yet another brutal demonstration of Silat, with Evans recently going on record to state that he is the only choreography he will work with and consider that somehow he has managed to craft scenes more brutal than the first film, as limbs are frequently broken or snapped. The scale of the fight scenes is also increased so that the majority of the battles are large scale affairs with the prison yard brawl featuring around 30 fighters is a dizzying piece of choreography while only added to when the whole thing seems to have been shot in one take.

The downside here though is that in upping the ante and trying to beat the already brutal bar set by the first film, there is often the feeling that things are being taken further than I felt comfortable watching especially when some sequences verge on raw sadism with the frenzied knife fight between Rama and “The Assassin” (Rahman) which I can only really describe as watching human dog fighting. Perhaps because unlike the insanely violent “Riki-Oh: Story of Ricky” this film is aiming for an element of realism which perhaps in turn makes it only seem the more brutal. However when you look at the fact that one character is using dual hammers and another a baseball bat, I guess there is no way to make their fights any less brutal.

While the film suffers due to its brutality levels there is no denying what Evans has achieved here as this is a film that the genre fans as well as fans of the first will no doubt adore, even if it is a different beast in many ways to the first film. With Evans looking to make a third and final film in the trilogy I'm now especially interested to see the direction he takes, more so when the bar has undoubtedly been raised yet again with this film.

The Raid: Redemption

Title: The Raid: Redemption

Director: Gareth Evans

Released: 2012

Staring: Ray Sahetapy, Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Yayan Ruhian

Plot: Crime lord Tama Riyadi (Ray Sahetapy) has turned the apartment block were he lives into his own personal fortress, by turning it into a safehouse for the city’s most dangerous murderers, killers, gangsters and other assorted scumbags and in the process making him untouchable by both his rivals and the police. Still despite this an elite team including rookie cop Rama (Iko Uwais) and led by the driven Sergeant Jaka (Joe Taslim) have now been dispatched to take down Tama once and for all.

 Review: Every few years there seems to be either one actor or a country which shakes up the martial arts genre, making up for the years in-between were genre fans have had to generally get by on whatever Direct-to-DVD nonsense that Steven Segal has churned out that month. This is not to say that there haven’t been glimmers of hope over the recent years, with Donnie Yen finally getting some long over due recognition, as well as the likes of Michael Jai White and to an extent Ray Park certainly doing their part to help revive the flagging genre which many would consider way beyond it’s golden days of the 70’s and 80’s, with the last noticeable examples in recent memory coming from Thiland, with Panna Rittikrai bringing us the likes of Tony Jaa (Ong-Bak) and JeeJa Yanin (Chocolate). These new breed of Martial Arts superstars coming with a promise of “No Stuntman, No Equal” as they delivered an exciting blend of thrilling stunt work and bone crunching fight scenes. Now it seems that Indonesia is going to be the next surprising place to find your Martial Arts fix, for “The Raid: Redemption” is not so much the next big thing, but a certified game changer for the genre, for entering into this film even as a veteran of a misspent childhood watching Kung fu movies, I was still blown away by how exhilarating and original a movie that Welsh born and self confessed genre fan director Gareth Evans has crafted here in what is easily another of this years big surprises, even though it would currently be set to be another film which will find its audience now it has been released on DVD after a limited cinema release schedule.

With the plot essentially established within the first fifteen minutes, with our hero Rama being given slightly more depth than the other members of this 20 man squad, as we open to him running through his morning prayers as a devout Muslim before engaging in his grueling training regime to further hone his already impressive martial arts skills, before his kisses his still sleeping and heavily pregnant wife goodbye. It is clear that he is a man trying to do what he can as a cop, to make the world a slightly safer place for his unborn child, with the removal of Tama being another key part of this personal quest.

Entering the building on the ground floor the team have no option to work their way up the building floor by floor, to get to Rama who is for some reason located on the 15^th. As to be expected their plans for a covert option are soon thrown out of the window when Rama is alerted to their presence by one of his spotters and offering the tenants free rent to those who kill the SWAT team and in effect mobilising his army of seemingly hundreds. Meanwhile Rama and the others only find their situation worse when they discover that their whole operation has not been sanctioned and meaning that they have no reinforcements or rescue to fall back on.

This film could in many ways be almost be described as a living video game, with it’s simple plot and the fact that dialogue kept to minimum, with this  film taking the old saying of “Actions speak louder than words” to a whole new level, while each floor the team clears almost feels like a level completed, with the bad guys attacking in disorganized groups, with many of the SWAT team’s opponents seemingly taking a number for their beat down as few bother to attack at the same time that another thug is fighting. Needless to say the fight scenes will be the reason you see this film and it pays out in spades as it provides a real showcase for “Silat” the Indonesian martial art style, which focuses on strikes, joint manipulation, throws aswell as the use of bladed weaponry, with the style being used to powerful effect here, especially to western audiences more familiar with the traditional Kung Fu and Kickboxing styles which have been favoured in martial arts movies, while more recent films such as Donnie Yen’s “Flashpoint” have seen the introduction of mixed martial arts. It goes without question though that Silat is yet another highly filmable style, as clearly shown here with it use of quick attacks and devastatingly powerful ground based attacks.

The promotion of this indigenous fighting style was a key reason for director Evans to make this movie, as he was looking for a project which he could build upon his fascination of the fighting style and promote it to international audiences with the films original conception as a large scale prison gang movie, only for time restraints to see it scaled down to it’s current form, which ultimately has proven to be a great decision with the hallways and shoe box sized apartments bringing a claustrophobic atmosphere to the film, aswell as a real sense of danger to what the SWAT team are facing, especially during the early scenes were they are forced to hole up in a room fighting off a rabid horde of  Tama’s followers.

The cast are all fantastic with Sahetapy proving himself a powerful mixture of sleazy slumlord and skillful and intelligent tactitian, though sadly not a fighter which would be more disappointing if it was not for Uwais who not only provides a sufficient amount of fight scenes to cover for this anticlimactic encounter and proves himself a star in the making and bringing back memories of Tony Jaa in “Ong-Bak”, as he showcases his impressive catalogue of moves, with incredible smoothness aswell as speed, yet still containing a street fighting edge, as fights frequently contain moments of seeming pure improvisation, meanwhile Yayan Ruhian who appears here as head thug “Mad Dog” a man who’d rather beat his opponents with his fists than shoot them, really provides a suitable challenge especially when the big evil of the film isn’t a fighter, leaving Mad Dog to handle his fights, which he more than happily does even taking on two opponents at the same time in the climatic fight scene which clocks in at an impressive 15 mins of non-stop fighting which when it had ended was greeted by a rousing round of applause by the audience attending the screening I was at, something I had only experienced twice previously when the mother ship blew up in “Independence day” and the second being when Bruce the shark got blown up in “Jaws”, but it is really a credit to the quality of the fight scenes on offer here, that it sparked such feelings in an audience.

Needless to say this film won’t appeal to everyone, especially for those of you whom find the prospect of 90+ minutes of pure bone crunching fight scenes, more than a little tiresome, meanwhile genre fans especially those of you who like your martial arts fast and brutal and action relentless will no doubt have a blast and hungry for more.