The Raid 2

[TheyCallMeMrGlass]

After seeing Transcendence on my own earlier today, I hooked up with my mate whom I have shared a love martial arts movies since we were at secondary school over two decades ago but lately we both agreed the excitement of looking forward to a new Asian martial arts flick has not been the same as before. We highly enjoyed the first Raid but while it was a welcome one off return to the good old days of action movies with true martial artists strutting their stuff we knew deep down that the old days of ambitious stunt work is long gone due to more stringent health and safety regulations. I suppose being older and debatably wiser that's a good thing but deep down we still cant help missing the unedited mad stunts of the silver/golden age of Hong Kong MA movies.

However, tonight, our love for the genre was violently reignited!

Man, what a tremendous blast of knee shaking, adrenaline inducing entertainment this was, framed in a larger canvas of gang warfare. Major laugh out moments of ridiculous OTT moments too I have to add. I was applauding several end of fight scenes as well as others in the audience. This is the sort of film where you HAVE TO make noise in the cinema and an experience to share with an enthusiastic audience as we laugh and gasp in unison as well as squirm loudly at the ultra gore on display. The timing of these shock moments is impeccable and sometimes done with incredible dark humour.

Although the fights might seem one too many, they are incredibly inventive and seriously hyper choreographed with the help of clever subtle cgi and editing. Because it so packed, there a lots of errors in the choreographic continuity also with a few hits that are too obviously non contact but hey I grew up with Shaw Brothers where nearly every hit was an obvious non contact, it was all about beautiful "shapes" in those days, so I aint making that a criticism, and the shapes in these fight sequences were certainly luxurious. There is a hark back to the old Hong Kong classics but this is as clear a statement they can make that is a new generation ultra violent fast cut upgrade. But I love that they retain some traditional tics such as the comical queue up to fight the hero style...a little bit of nostalgic fun for me.

The incredibly long background story was actually very engaging with some nods to the Godfather but lets face it, this ain't Godfather, it's the action sequences that rule and so it should. But there are some high calibre Asian actors I recognise giving the film quite some unexpected gravitas which was a bonus.

The gore is deliberately excessive as if making a statement that they are going to hold nothing back and throw everything they got at us and boy, do they hold to that including one of the best car chase sequences I've seen in ages.

This was simply an awesome hardcore ultra-violent and very exhausting piece of cinema entertainment to which my mate and I wondered afterwards why the hell didn't we catch this on the first weekend. One to watch with an action loving group of mates (not essential of course, I am going to see this again on my own anyway).


9/10

[spoiler]The last line of the film "No, I am done" was very satisfactory and part of me hope they mean it. That for me is total and satisfying completion of this two part saga. The first film paved a way for a sequel and this epic sequel gives closure. After all many of the fights were a rehash of the first Raid movie so a third film would probably be stale. I welcome some new material from the inventive team.

One thing that threw me, and I thought this sequel would have explored was the death of the brother at the very beginning! I thought what?! I was expecting an intriguing complex story of two brothers on the opposite side of the law, its a great premise...but they threw it away! It could have made for a great third film. Oh well.

Oh and another thing that threw me into confusion was the appearance of "Mad Dog"...how can he be here and then I came to realise this actor is playing another character! Another badass one at that too. If they do make a Raid 3, he will probably appear again as another character in a "oh my god, they killed Kenny!" sort of way.[/spoiler]

[missgotty]

Simply a brilliant action film. I liked it so much I saw it twice thanks to Vealster1 and Raj101. 10/10

[pizzakiller]

It was good movie and the action was mind blowing. I loved the girl with the claw hammers.