Violent night<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gory night<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All is tense<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All is fight<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ah, the genius, the lyricism, the poetry. Yep, you\u2019re welcome. Moving on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Gareth Evans\u2019 original Raid<\/em> film was a masterpiece in tension and blood-pumping action. It\u2019s not the first film to do the \u2018everyone\u2019s stuck in a tall building and tension\u2019s increasing\u2019 shtick (see: Dredd<\/em>) and it\u2019s not the last (see: High Rise<\/em>), but goddamn, the action was relentless and constantly engaging, and very, very bloody, an element that\u2019s distinctly lacking in the majority of contemporary films. Without blood, it\u2019s difficult to get any sense of realism into the plot (as much as realism can be considered in the context of film), and, importantly, any consequences from the acts of violence. Here though, there\u2019s plenty of consequences, and plenty of violence too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following quickly on from the events of the first film, Rama is again tasked with going into the belly of the beast, but instead of a gang lord, he has to infiltrate a crime syndicate and expose a corrupt cop. The first stage involves winning the trust of the boss\u2019 son in prison, which leads to some particularly outstanding fight scenes, which the original made its name for. As with the first film and Evans\u2019 previous film Merantau<\/em>, the Indonesian fighting style pencak silat is employed throughout, proving a bone crunching realism as punches hit skin like bullets and fights play out in intricately choreographed ballets. If you think you\u2019ve seen a great battle fight scene that takes place in pools of mud, then you ain\u2019t seen the spectacle on display here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The fight scenes are gloriously choreographed throughout, with each individual hit sending a pounding smack through the soundscape. It\u2019s the kind of film I wished I could\u2019ve seen in IMAX to appreciate each individual hit. Also, you\u2019ll never appreciate just how effective a pair of hammers and a baseball bat can be at getting a bloody job done. Particularly if said hammer happens to be made of metal and is accompanied with a well-aimed baseball. The fact that the assassins are referred to only as Hammer Girl and Baseball Bat Man in the script tells you all you need to know. An intricately woven plot of betrayals flows through the narrative, but it\u2019s the fight scenes that stand out above and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also great to see Yayan Ruhian make a triumphant return to the fray, not as Mad Dog in the original, but playing a different assassin entirely. It\u2019s wonderful to see the martial artist\u2019s expertise again in full form; Evans apparently declared that he would refuse to direct another film unless Ruhian was involved. The overall level of violence manages to exceed even the original, a feat in itself, and the film was banned in Malaysia upon release due to this apparent excessive violence. But with its outstanding martial arts and kinetic plot, The Raid 2<\/em> is worthy successor to its intense original.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Violent night Gory night All is tense All is fight Ah, the genius, the lyricism, the poetry. Yep, you\u2019re welcome. Moving on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1192"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1264,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192\/revisions\/1264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}