By Matthew Moorcroft

Strong Recommendation

• Directed by Kenji Tanigaki
• Starring Xie Miao, Joe Taslim, Brian Le, Yayan Ruhian
• R

An apt title for a movie whose main energy is always at a thousand percent, The Furious feels like the second coming of Christ if you are a martial arts flick kind of guy. Ever since the late 90s, Hong Kong action cinema has been around but it has lacked the same kind of dominance over the action space that it once had. In it’s place, countries like Indonesia and India and even Amercian Hollywood directors like Chad Stahelski have turned the genre on it’s head multiple times over.

But while he’s not necessarily Chinese, Japanese director Kenji Tanigaki wants to show these newbies how it’s done by returning to the roots of the action film – which is stone cold brutality, lots of punches and kicks, and a whole lot of craziness. From it’s opening setpiece which immediately goes into a one on three in a basement where bones are breaking in gnarly ways to it’s final five way brawl that feels like a video game battle royale, there is a simple pleasure that The Furious revels in. It’s not trying to be anything more then it is, and that’s ultimately why it’s such a massive success as a flick.

It’s story is purposefully simple. A working mute handyman, who clearly has a past outside of the little we do get about him, is on a search to rescue his kidnapped daughter who has been taken by child traffickers. He teams up with a journalist who wants to expose the trafficking ring and locate his missing partner, and that’s basically it. There is a strength in simplicity in these cases though, and while The Furious certainly isn’t going to win any awards for it’s dialogue or character work – one could rightfully argue that it’s dialogue and character work are actively the weakest thing about The Furious – Tanigaki as a director clearly has his priorities straight here. Hell, if anything, The Furious uses that simple story mostly as a vehicle to tell it’s story entirely visually and through action to the point of it’s mute protagonist who doesn’t speak and instead lets his fists do the talking.

And that action is unbelievable. Long takes are mixed with precise, pitch perfect cutting and complex choreography that takes full advantage of it’s settings. If two characters land in a place with a bunch of objects, you are damn well sure those objects are getting used and abused in a way that only these actors know how. Hammers, knifes, axes, chairs, tables, wooden frames, and even bikes are used as weapons in this at some point or another in this and the creative levels of destruction they are able to get out of this is worth the price of admission alone. While the final fight sequence is probably what’s going to get most people’s eyes, a spectacular first half raid sequence that culminates in a scene with people frozen in ice getting smashed to bits is equally as creative, fun, and brutal.

That grabbing also extends to the people in the scene itself, which is where The Furious likely finds it’s real evolution of the formula. It’s an action film where so much of the action scenes are with two people holding onto each other best they can for dear life as they bite, punch, kick, and sometimes literally rip their way through people. Gone are days of just flashy kicks and punches and also gone are the days of the brutal, unrelenting violence of something like The Raid. Instead, The Furious is both but now with video game style logic behind it’s structure. Yeah, one of the dudes uses a bow and arrow as his main weapon and is the only one who does. Why? Who cares! It’s sick as hell and he kills an entire police station with it, that’s all you need.

And that’s why it’s likely The Furious will stand the test of time as well likely influence numerous imitators over the next several years as filmmakers try to chase that initial high. It’s a glorious, wonderfully entertaining display of human violence and it will make you levitate out of your seat with adrenaline. The kind of movie you wanna see with a big crowd, and the kind of movie that the big screen is really made for. One of the must watches of the year.