A father fights fiercely against ruthless kidnappers to save his abducted daughter.
Asian action cinema has produced some terrific films over the years, with the likes of ‘The Raid’ finding significant success with Western audiences, and ‘The Furious’ very much follows in that tradition. Directed by veteran action choreographer Kenji Tanigaki, it follows Wang Wei (Xie Miao), a mute father whose young daughter Rainy is kidnapped by a criminal trafficking network. His search brings him together with journalist Navin (Joe Taslim), whose wife disappeared while investigating the same organisation, and the pair team up to fight their way through seemingly endless numbers of criminals in an attempt to find them both.
And there is an awful lot of fighting. ‘The Furious’ is an adrenaline-fuelled ride that moves quickly from one action sequence to another, with some terrific fight choreography and stunt work throughout. Tanigaki understandably knows exactly how to shoot this stuff, allowing you to properly see the skill and physicality involved, while finding increasingly inventive ways for the characters to beat the living daylights out of each other. It regularly stretches credibility and becomes quite silly, but that’s also part of the fun.
The action is considerably better than the story, which is perfectly functional but essentially exists to move the characters from one fight to the next. The kidnapped daughter and criminal organisation plot is hardly breaking new ground, and there isn’t a great deal of depth to any of it, but I don’t think that particularly matters when the action is this good. Xie Miao and Joe Taslim make for a likeable pairing, and the film understands that its main job is to keep the momentum going and give them increasingly elaborate situations to fight their way out of. And that it does with aplomb.
As a piece of pure action filmmaking, ‘The Furious’ absolutely delivers. It’s fast, violent, occasionally ridiculous and packed with brilliantly choreographed fights, and I really enjoyed it.
Rating: 4/5
Directed By: Kenji Tanigaki
Starring: Xie Miao, Joe Taslim, Brian Le, Joey Iwanaga, Yayan Ruhian and Jeeja Yanin
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