Producers: Bill Kong, Frank Hui and Shan Tam Director: Kenji Tanigaki Screenplay: Mak Tin-shu, Lei Zhilong, Shum Kwan-sin and Frank Hui Cast: Xie Miao, Joe Taslim, Yang Enyou, Jeeja Yanin, Brian Le, Joey Iwanaga, Yayan Ruhian, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Manatsanun Phanlerdwongsakul, Winai Wiangyangkung and Guo Junqing Distributor: Lionsgate
Grade: B
If you enjoy non-stop action movies, check out Kenji Tanigaki’s “The Furious.” Like 2011’s “The Raid” (aka “The Raid: Redemption”) from Indonesia, the Hong Kong picture is a kick-grapple-and-punch blowout showcasing a constant stream of fight scenes that are both cartoonishly over-the-top and brutally violent. Some of them, to be sure, go on to ridiculous lengths, but as choreographed by Kensuke Sonomura, shot by Meteor Cheung and edited by Chris Tonick, they have a kinetic quality that’s like ballet gone berserk.
Of course, a plot is needed to link them all together, and naturally it’s centered on families, all of them troubled. We begin with Wang Wei (Xie Miao), a mute, sad-faced Chinese man eking out a living as a handyman in an unnamed county in Southeast Asia (the movie was shot in Thailand). His daughter Rainy (Yang Enyou) is visiting him from China, and wants him to return there with her or let her remain with him; he rejects either option and insists that she continue her martial arts training to be able to protect herself.
But she’s unable to do that when, asked by a young boy (Guo Junqing) for help, she’s lured into the arms of a gang of human traffickers specializing in children, she’s knocked out and tossed into a truck. Her father sees her being taken and does battle with the kidnappers Ho (Brian Le) and Donkey Head (Winai Wiangyangkung), but they get away with her.
During this first martial-arts set piece, however, Wang Wei spies a clue that takes him to a fight club run by seedy Mr. Song (Sahajak Boonthanakit). There he encounters Navin (Joe Taslim), who’s supposedly negotiating with Song for thirty children for some unspecified purpose but is actually looking for his estranged wife Matia (Jeeja Yanin), a journalist who’d been doing an investigative piece on the trafficking ring and, as a prologue to the film showed, had tried to break it up on her own.
After some initial tussling, the two men join forces, and the movie goes into higher and higher gear, eventually centering on their struggle against Song’s boss Paklung (Joey Iwanaga), a smooth operator in league with a cabal of old oligarchs including his father-in-law, and his chief enforcer, grimly efficient bowman Tak (Yayan Ruhian).
As all that’s happening, Tanigaki and Tonik periodically cut to Rainy, who’s encouraging her fellow captives to work to free themselves. Her efforts are unsuccessful, though, until Wang Wei and Navin make their way to the dank dungeon where they’re being kept, leading to a fierce battle against Paklung’s men that’s finally settled only after honest cop Yadong (Sahajak Boonthanakit) rebels against her corrupt chief and leads her fellow officers in helping to save the kids.
But even that doesn’t end things. Paklung, furious over his own losses professional and personal, comes with Tak to the police station to exact his revenge, introducing a prolonged finale of escalating mayhem. A coda set back in sun-drenched China ends things on a bittersweet note.
There’s no denying the simplicity of plotting here, or the banality of the dialogue (variously in English, Mandarin and Thai). But the quality of the extravagant fight scenes, amplified by a rousing score by Elliot Leung, Olivia Xiaolin and Flying Lotus, is ample compensation. True, they tend to be overextended, but the choreographic imagination is impressive, and so is the fact that they’re not the kind of plastic CGI stuff one finds in Hollywood action movies but practical physical stunt work done by actual human beings—and so refreshingly real (if one can accept their bone-crunching effect and the ability of the fighters to survive multiple blows).
Equally refreshing is the relative absence of guns. True, Song takes a rifle up at one point, but it’s an old one that needs to be reloaded over and over again, not an automatic that seems never to run out of bullets. Instead, the battlers resort to hammers, swords, bows-and-arrows, wooden pallets and other potentially fatal weapons, including—in a turn that’s likely to elicit giggles—dueling bicycles. The sheer absurdity of it all is obvious, yet it’s combined with a seriousness mitigated from time to time by a welcome dose of gallows humor, as when Ho returns repeatedly, like a bruiser energizer bunny, from an apparent demise to resume fighting, or Paklung ends his quest for revenge with a delusion about the family he’s destroyed.
A glance at the trailer will tell you whether “The Furious” is for you. If not, you can just wait around for another addition to the lumbering Hollywood franchise that adds “Fast” to the title, but won’t provide half the energy as this rock-’em-sock-’em extravaganza.