The Furious: Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting

By Liz Braun

Rating: B+

The Furious is two hours of exactly the martial arts mayhem you were hoping it would be.

Distinguished by gobsmacking fight choreography and complex mass battle scenes, The Furious is a non-stop action epic of good versus evil that will have you hyperventilating within the first two minutes.

The story concerns child trafficking. Kids are vanishing off the street in an unnamed part of Southeast Asia. A female investigative reporter working on the disappearance of one particular child comes face-to-face with the bad guys, igniting a brief, violent interaction that sets things in motion.

Thereafter the action centres on devoted father Wang Wei (Miao Xie), a gentle, mute, local handyman whose adolescent daughter (Enyou Yang) is grabbed off the street. From the jump it’s obvious that this father has a skilled and violent past; old scars and that “hidden dragon” demeanour suggest he should not be crossed.

Wang Wei is determined to rescue his daughter from the human traffickers and exact revenge while he’s at it.

Running parallel to his quest is that of Navin (Joe Taslim), who is likewise searching for a loved one among the child trafficking gangsters. Eventually it’s Wang Wei and Navin against an army of bad guys, chief among them a massive slab of melee mastery (Brian Le) who will not stay down no matter how many times he is clobbered.

Then there’s a ghoulish blade and bow expert (Yayan Ruhian), a vile young mastermind (Joey Iwanaga) and a vile older gang boss (Sahajak Boonthanakit) among the many villains.

What follows: breathtaking beatings and bloodletting. The fight scenes are magnificent and almost indescribable in their complexity, a bit like some gravity-defying combo of Simone Biles or Kōhei Uchimura and the World Double Dutch Freestyle competition set in a vertical wind tunnel. Never mind.

As usual in a martial arts movie, guns are for losers. That’s not to say there are no weapons — ball peen hammers, ladders, shovels, blocks of ice etc. are used to smash people — but the real damage is done with flying hands and feet. The dialogue may be dubious and the plotting obvious, but the great satisfaction of The Furious are fight scenes you can actually see.

As Variety reported when the film was at TIFF last fall, director Kenji Tanigaki committed to authenticity for the fight and action scenes, relying on the formidable martial arts skills of his cast rather than stunt doubles or VFX. The results are gobsmacking.

The Furious. Directed by Kenji Tanigaki, written by Frank Hui, Zhilong Lei, Tin Shu Mak. Starring Miao Xie, Joe Taslim, and Brian Le. In theatres June 12.