Ferocious in execution and intense in tone The Raid 2 ups the ante on its bone breaking predecessor, establishing Gareth Evans as the saviour of action movies and Iko Uwais as the next generation martial arts star we’ve been waiting for.   

For the last decade, the action genre has been divided into four distinct sub categories: the superhero movie (The Avengers, The Dark Knight), the “geriatrics with guns” movie (The Expendables, Taken), the arty martial arts movie (The Grandmaster, Red Cliff) and the ever popular shaky cam thriller (The Bourne movies, Safe House). Missing was that gritty urban action movie, the kind that saw masters of the genre like Walter Hill and John Woo bring on the violence in entertaining ways.

That changed when The Raid was released in 2012, an Indonesian set martial arts crime story directed by Welshman Gareth Evans that was both electrifying and evolutionary. With The Raid 2 (originally conceived as an altogether different movie named Berandal, yet later morphed into a sequel to The Raid) Evans goes for bigger, badder and more batshit crazy with his action sequences.

Set two hours after the first movie, The Raid 2 begins in typically violent style with the execution of a beloved character by new villain Bejo (Alex Abbad), who intends on making his mark in the Jakarta underworld. It is that world which good cop Rama (Iko Uwais) has to infiltrate in order to bring down the baddest of the bad guys, and protect his family from potential retaliation for his ass kicking, crime busting exploits seen in the first Raid movie.

A baby faced hero that commands the screen with his presence and ferocious Pencak Silat (that’s the Indonesian martial arts utilised in Evan’s films), Uwais has taken the mantle of new martial arts star from the grasp of floundering Tony Jaa (Ong Bak star turned Buddhist monk who has only recently returned to the movie world) and is not likely to let it go.

While The Raid 2 is packed with more characters and more plot compared to the video game structure of the original, Uwais’ character Rama is still the central figure amidst this entire martial arts/crime story epic, and he excels as both a character struggling with his conscience while playing an enforcer for the mob and kick ass fighting machine.

And boy, do these action scenes go above and beyond the pale. 6 months rehearsal was invested in the fight choreography and the results are breathtaking as we grimace, squirm, and watch mouth agape at the ferocious display of martial arts before us, as if Evans had conducted a symphony of violence that is disgustingly brutal, awe inspiring and innovative in its choreography. No punch, kick, lunge or thrust of weapon is wasted, with claw hammers, pick axes, baseball bats, machete’s…hell, even the car chase has to be seen to be believed!

Evans still has some things to work on in his repertoire, with inconsistencies in narrative and pacing issues that need to be addressed, and there is no doubt that they will. Yet as an action filmmaker, his vision and execution of that vision something to behold. In short, he is the action director which we action purists have been praying for.