PLOT: Two men race against time in a desperate attempt to dismantle a child abduction ring before it’s too late.
REVIEW: One of the many things I enjoy about TIFF is that, in the middle of all the high-brow Oscar contenders, the Midnight Madness gang can always be relied on to deliver a couple of straight-up bangers. While the program is usually associated with horror, it always makes room for some high-velocity action, with The Raid: Redemption famously premiering here many years ago. This year’s all-out action entry, The Furious, doesn’t quite reach the groundbreaking heights of The Raid, but it’s still a kick-ass, crowd-pleasing ride that had me grinning from ear to ear for most of its running time.
This one is a buddy action flick, with Xie Miao starring as Wei, a Chinese father whose young daughter is abducted by child traffickers. He reluctantly teams up with the husband (Joe Taslim) of a missing journalist in a desperate race against time to save her—and many other abducted children—from a vicious and wide-reaching criminal ring. One of the things that makes The Furious stand out is its Pan-Asian production background, with the story set in an unnamed but palpably corrupt country where English is used as the lingua franca. Wei is mute, having suffered a devastating head injury years before, and while silent throughout, Miao more than makes up for it with his physical presence. Longtime action buffs will be tickled to recognize him as the grown-up version of the scene-stealing kid from a handful of Jet Li’s ’90s hits, most famously My Father is a Hero (released in the U.S. as The Enforcer). In many ways, this feels like exactly the kind of movie Li would have made in his prime—unrepentantly over-the-top, and stuffed with enough action for a dozen films.
Joe Taslim, with his charisma and flair for languages, handles most of the exposition but also holds his own in the action scenes. His character—a citizen journalist determined to track down his missing wife—makes for an effective foil to Wei’s wordless fury. Together, the two plow through what seems like hundreds of bad guys in a relentless barrage of bone-crunching martial arts sequences. There are plenty of jaw-dropping moments, but nothing tops the climax: a wild five-way showdown pitting Miao and Taslim against The Raid’s Yayan Ruhian and Joey Iwanaga, with Chinese stuntman Brian Le tossed in as a wildcard.
Admittedly, the film isn’t without flaws. The dialogue is clunky, the overdubbing is often apparent, and some technical aspects betray the film’s slim budget. But in terms of action, director Kenji Tanigaki—best known as the fight choreographer behind SPL and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled City—delivers the goods. His staging is dynamic and unrelentingly brutal. On top of that, the whole thing is propelled forward by a hard-driving soundtrack from Flying Lotus.
While The Furious lacks the slick polish of the best recent South Korean, Chinese, or Indonesian action blockbusters, it makes up for it in sheer adrenaline and crowd-pleasing ferocity. It’s the kind of movie designed for high-fives in the theatre, where you’ll find yourself grinning like an idiot as wave after wave of mayhem unfolds on screen. I had a killer time with it, and anyone considering themselves a fan of action cinema should put this one very high on their list.
