The Furious, 2025.
Directed by Kenji Tanigaki.
Starring Xie Miao, Joe Taslim, Yang Enyou, Yayan Ruhian, JeeJa Yanin, Brian Le, Joey Iwanaga, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Manatsanun Panlertwongskul, Kittiphoom Wongpentak, Winai Wiangyangkung, Guo Junqing, Marut Charoensub, Sonny Chatwiriyachai, Chayanith Riddhimat, Tanapol Chuksrida, and Kittiphoom Wongpentak.
SYNOPSIS:
After the daughter of Wang Wei is kidnapped by a criminal network and he receives no help from the corrupt police, Wei sets out on a rampage to find her himself. His only ally is Navin – a relentless journalist whose wife has mysteriously disappeared. Fueled by a furious vengeance, the unlikely duo ruthlessly fights against the kidnappers in this explosive martial arts showdown.
Somewhere in Southeast Asia, Navin (Joe Taslim) is undercover posing as interested in purchasing children from traffickers, working his way up that ladder and, of course, the whereabouts of the kids in an effort to also find out what happened to his reporter wife Matia (JeeJa Yanin) who went missing after months of tireless investigation while on the verge of a major breakthrough in the case (something we are privy to in the prologue). Simultaneously, mute Wang Wei (Xie Miao) is tirelessly hunting down that same group for kidnapping his daughter Rainy (Yang Enyou) in broad daylight following an argument with her father about life, presence, and her moving back to China, lured to a vulnerable spot by a child (regularly abused and forced by the traffickers to be bait) begging for assistance. In director Kenji Tanigaki’s The Furious (from a screenplay by Shum Kwan-Sin, Frank Hui, Mak Tin-Shu, and Lei Zhilong), they are on a collision course to join forces and bring this criminal umpire down.
Sure, this is a template story, and anyone who isn’t playing a major character sounds like they have never acted before in their lives. It is also relentless on the acrobatic, martial-arts brutality front, yet subtly twists villain dynamics to justify each subsequent set piece that advances the narrative. The Furious is an out-of-body experience that is one of, if not the, best action films of the past 15 years.
It is also a film that means business with its subject material, unafraid to put the children in harm’s way (at one point early on, Rainy is dangled upside down outside of a moving truck) but wise enough not to reduce that to exploitation; even they eventually become part of the chaos in resourceful, sometimes violent ways within a story also bothered to actually do something with them as characters, touching on themes of forgiveness, empathy, and found family. The point is that no one is safe here, which only makes the already supercharged adrenaline even higher, as if each ticket should come with a warning that the movie could cause a heart attack.
Naturally, the bulk of the action comes down to Wang Wei and Navin, moving from locale to locale to beat the holy hell out of henchmen to continuously go up the hierarchy, making for a series of electric, crowded brawls that consistently defy all sense of logic and physicality, even though it is real people pulling off real stunts. A fight choreographer and having already directed plenty of action films, Kenji Tanigaki is also aware that desperation is the best weapon for emotional impact in a fight, whether it’s against one guy or one hundred.
It’s a film that invests so much resilience and determination in its characters to accomplish their goal that the only way it knows to break up one of those multi-layered, spectacular sequences is to have one of them get hit by a car, and then keep going. There is urgency, and then there is The Furious, which keeps you locked in and ready to run through a brick wall alongside these guys to save their loved ones (that’s not a spoiler, though it wouldn’t have surprised me if it happened).
Immaculately lensed by cinematographer Meteor Cheung, each of those brawls is utterly breathless, unsurprisingly filled with the usual MMA-style takedowns, submission-style attempts, roll-throughs, kickbacks, resets, and more, while pummeling one another to a bloody pulp, but here, characters often find ways to stay in the air without touching the ground, throwing punches and kicks. Hordes of henchmen become Jenga towers as Wang Wei or Navin use those bodies as platforms and punching bags. Environments are taken advantage of to the extreme, with planks of wood and ladders entering the equation either to knock guys back or to serve as tools in battle. Thunder repeatedly strikes, timed to barbaric impact during the all-out mayhem climax containing several characters. Cameras are attached to a driver on a motorcycle, mowing down more huntsmen in an alley, crashing into a stuntman while a child swings around a weapon. Hell, at one point, a psychopathic nutjob is introduced, not only shooting good guys with a bow-and-arrow, but full-on wielding it like a sword in close-quarters combat.
Truthfully, there are infinite flowers to bestow upon the action sequences; the prologue battle and the initial kidnapping car chase that further kicks off the plot are also exhilarating, and most modern action movies don’t hold a candle to them. It’s The Raid on steroids, which sounds like something that shouldn’t even be possible but is here. Yet, for all that balls-to-the-wall excitement, each of those sequences is also filled with small character touches that heighten the intensity and emotion, with Wang Wei and Navin both overcome with rage at one point, to the point that they must hold one another back lest they jeopardize their mission. While technically helpless victims, the children are also not treated as such and have their moments of intelligence and banding together, choosing to unite instead of holding grudges. Then there are villains here who make fatal choices and discoveries that don’t necessarily change perceptions of who they are or what they are doing, but do give them some dimensionality and a reason to be enraged.
By the final battle, everyone is furious, and we are rapturous in disbelief at this astonishing display of visceral action and pushing the body beyond its limits to rescue loved ones. The Furious never lets that fury up.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
