The Furious Review: Best Action Film Of The Decade?

The Furious‘s jaw-dropping action scenes are so ferocious and inventive that they leave you gasping for breath, commends Sreeju Sudhakaran.

The Furious, Kenji Tanigaki’s latest action thriller from Hong Kong, has been dominating conversations among cinephiles over the past few days.

Many are calling it the best action film of the year, which is not exactly the toughest race to win because genuinely great action films have become a rarity these days, unless you have Tom Cruise trying to cheat death so that we can remain entertained.

Even he is done playing the world’s greatest runner, Ethan Hunt, and is now trying to score an Oscar with his upcoming film, Digger.

Okay, Cruise is making me digress.

So let me come back to The Furious and admit that I agree with most of these conversations about how it could very well be the best action film not just of the year, but one of the best from the present decade.

That is, that is… if you judge it solely on its action scenes.

What’s The Furious About?

The Furious is set in an undisclosed city somewhere in Southeast Asia. While we never learn which country the city belongs to, we do know its protagonist Wang Wei (Xie Miao) is a Chinese immigrant. He is a mute handyman and a widower who goes on a relentless pursuit of those who have kidnapped his young daughter Rainy (Yang Enzou).

During his search, he teams up with a journalist Navin (Joe Taslim), who is also hunting the same child-trafficking ring that abducted Rainy, determined to discover what happened to his girlfriend. Though, for the viewer, that is hardly a mystery since the answer is revealed in the opening scene.

Like I usually do after watching a film, I went digging around for background information and discovered that The Furious has two versions: A Chinese cut and an international cut. It is the international version that is releasing in India.

From what I read, the Chinese version gives slightly more prominence to Wang’s character, even though he remains the central lead in both cuts. There is also apparently a tease for a sequel that is absent from the international version.

The Generic Plotting

But whether you are watching the Chinese version or the international one, the actual plot of The Furious is very much Taken-coded. It is generic, familiar and offers very few surprises. You can probably predict who will still be standing by the time the credits roll, and there is a 99.9 percent chance you will end up feeling like the world’s most obvious Nostradamus.

Unlike Taken‘s Bryan Mills, whom we know was a CIA operative with a very particular set of skills, Wang’s past remains largely a mystery.

A few scars on his body and references to a head injury tease the kind of man he might once have been. All we really know is that he is exceptionally proficient in kung fu and loves his daughter enough not to trust the police to rescue her.

The Furious uses this generic setup as little more than an excuse to unleash its hero on a relentless and violent rampage, giving him and his newfound ally every opportunity to shift the action from one location to another. And for the action-hounds, that excuse is enough because you are getting your money’s worth in the process.

The Furious also reminded me of the Asian action movies that were churned out in the 1980s and 1990s and later found American audiences. The kind where characters spoke in wonky English and exchanged lines that clearly received about 0.01 percent of the effort invested in the action choreography.

Also, yes, where almost every character happens to be an expert martial artist.

Except the cops.

Like in most Bollywood films, they are completely useless here.

There is also the fact that parts of the visual aesthetic and setting evoke memories of another cult classic, the Indonesian action masterpiece The Raid (2011). That feeling is strengthened by the presence of Yayan Ruhian, who memorably played Mad Dog in both The Raid and its 2014 superior sequel.

Here, he plays another highly skilled fighter, who can bring down hordes with his bow and arrows, and loyal henchman to the main antagonist, Paklung (Joey Iwanaga), the rich ringleader of the trafficking ring.

The Stunning Action Choreography

If you are purely seeking the adrenaline-pumping moments, such trivialities are easy to ignore when The Furious gets down to business from the very first scene.

The action is brutal, violent and breathlessly frenetic.

Kenji Tanigaki knows exactly what the audience has come for and delivers action sequences in abundance without wasting too much time on character development or dramatic depth. Though, to be fair, you still find yourself invested in the father-daughter relationship and Navin’s search for his missing fiancée.

The stunt choreography is raw, vicious and exquisite in its execution.

There were moments when I genuinely felt sorry for the punishment these performers were putting themselves through just to keep us riveted. There were also moments when I found myself wondering how on earth they pulled off certain stunts, like the relentless chase sequence that ends with a vehicle crashing into someone.

Meteor Cheung’s camerawork works in near-perfect harmony with the choreography, moving fluidly through confined spaces and narrow passageways to capture every punch, kick and fall.

The sequences are also edited with impressive clarity by Chris Tonick, ensuring the performers’ hard work is not ruined by excessive cutting that would dilute the bone-crunching impact of their athletic feats.

Though at times, I did wonder if the censor board may have assisted with some of the editing. There is one death scene where the actual killing is never shown properly, despite the movie remaining extremely brutal elsewhere.

Impressive Performers

Of course, the performers themselves play an equally important role in making the action feel so visceral, intense and convincing.

Even if it stretches credibility that they can continue fighting after absorbing the kind of gruelling punishment they do (like taking a hammer into their abdomen), the pain still feels real enough to keep you invested in the fights.

Joe Taslim, Brian Le (playing a hulking henchman who doesn’t have ‘quit’ in his limited vocabulary), Joey Iwanaga, Yayan Ruhian and JeeJa Yanin (who leaves a strong mark despite very limited screen time), are all phenomenal during the action sequences. The young Yang Enyou is also pretty likeable as the daughter who has imbibed some of her father’s grit.

But the undisputed star of the show is Xie Miao, who feels destined to become this decade’s Iko Uwais. His timing, athleticism and screen presence are simply extraordinary.

So what was my favourite action sequence?

The opening fight scene?

The fight that follows when Wang learns his daughter has been kidnapped?

The nightclub brawl? The warehouse showdown?

Perhaps the claustrophobic battle for survival inside the villain’s hideout that also involves Wang and Rainy mowing down villains on a bike?

They all goodie-good.

But the winner is, hands down, the brutal five-person, three-way fight in the climax set inside a police station. It is a gloriously bloody and savage sequence featuring people who simply refuse to stay down.

Everything clicks into place here. The fighters, the editing, the camerawork and the score all hit their peak simultaneously to deliver an explosive finale. By the end of it, you just want the fighting to stop.

Not because you are tired of the relentless assault on skin, flesh, teeth and bone.

But because you desperately need to catch that breath you have been holding throughout the entire sequence.