Do you like balls-to-the-wall martial arts action? Then, I have a movie for you. The Furious may be light on plot and character, but it more than makes up for it in the fight department. If that kind of movie interests you, read on as I explain why the movie was so awesome.
The Furious is a pan-Asian production and is largely told in English. It comes out of Hong Kong, but features a Japanese director, a Chinese lead, an Indonesian co-lead, and is shot in Thailand (listed as simply “somewhere is south east Asia). The premise is a simple one. Our lead (Xie Miao) is a mute who gets by being a handyman to help support his daughter. The loss of her mother recently has been a bit of a strain on their dynamic, causing some tension and friction. This paves the way for some terrible human traffickers to take advantage of the situation, plucking her off the streets in broad daylight. At the same time, an investigative journalist looking into the trafficking ring has suddenly vanished, leading her husband (The Raid’s Joe Taslim) to start his own investigation to find her. These two stories naturally converge as both men team up to find the trafficking ring and find their loved ones.
As you can see and imagine, the story is very light in The Furious. Not that it’s paper-thin, just it doesn’t need to be more than an inciting incident, with very clear and defined motivations that are easy to root for and get behind. But if you’re looking for a bit of nuance and grey zone within the morality of the characters, you won’t find that here. Also, being a pan-Asian production that’s shot mainly in English, there’s a weird issue where some of the side characters’ lines of dialogue are dubbed English over English. It reminded me of the old spaghetti westerns, where the Italian actors would speak their lines in English, only for an American actor to dub them over. It wasn’t an issue for me personally, and it’s not like this is for every character, so it doesn’t happen often. I thought I would still mention it as a technical quirk that may be distracting for some. Also, as this is a simple tale, some of the dialogue is, well, not the best, especially when combined with the aforementioned dubbing.
But you’re not going to The Furious for dialogue and nuance. What you’re coming for is martial arts mayhem, and in that department, The Furious more than excels. The movie features many lengthy, well-shot, well-edited fight scenes that are creative and entertaining. No two fights are the same, and some fights feature set-ups that I can honestly say I’ve never seen before (looking at you, final fight). The fights are highly stylized and choreographed, not particularly practical in real life, but they’re so damn entertaining and well orchestrated that you’re along for the ride. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the movie features some of the best, if not the best, beatdowns since The Raid films. It certainly has the best use of a hammer since Oldboy. There’s also a wide variety of martial styles on display, from Kung Fu to Judo to Silat, offering quite a lot of variety within the approaches themselves. As a potential selling point for action junkies, the film is directed by Kenji Tanigaki, who was a stunt coordinator on SPL: Kill Zone, starring Donnie Yen and if you’ve not seen that one, well, get on that!
So if you like action films that are well-staged, well-choreographed, and edited, then this is an easy recommendation. I can’t imagine there’ll be a better action film to come out this year in terms of its technical prowess. I had a blast watching the bonkers fights on display.
