Toronto 2024 Review: THE SHADOW STRAYS, Another Knockout Action Extravaganza From Timo Tjahjanto

A teenage assassin, codename 13, is part of a secret organization of assassins known only as The Shadows. When she fumbles during her last mission she is suspended and shipped back to Jakarta to wait until her mentor, Umbra, calls her back into action. While she waits she meets 11-year-old Monji, whose mother is mixed up with the local criminal element, doing what she has to, to provide for her son. When Monji goes missing 13 tears a through the underbelly of Jakarta, riding a dizzying wave of destruction that reaches more levels of corruption through law enforcement and the local government. It will no doubt create enough noise to get the attention of Umbra and the rest of The Shadows. One thing at a time, though. 

 

Indonesian action maestro Timo Tjahjanto is back, having completed their TIFF hat trick with their latest epic action extravaganza, The Shadow Strays. Following the same mindset they had with Headshot (2016) and The Night Comes For Us (2018) it appears that Tjahjanto is only interested in giving the Toronto audience ballistic hellstorms that have become increasingly more violent while honing their craft. A lot of people go to therapy to exorcize their demons. Timo Tjahjanto makes action movies, very big and violent action movies. Picking up where they left off with the equally extreme action of The Night Comes For Us, Tjahjanto returns with another massive dose of explosive and bloody carnage. This time with more sword. 

 

The story’s framework is not wholly unfamiliar to action cinema fans. The trained assassin befriends a young child and when things go to hell and that child is put in danger the assassin employs a scorched Earth work ethic to save them. We’ve seen the same tale, told similarly in films like Re: Born out of Japan, The Man From Nowhere out of Korea, and a good ol’ classic like Leon: The Professional out of France and the U.S. Familiarity means that we don’t have to think too much about the plot. We can sit back, relax, and wait to see how many bodies have to fall this time in order for said child to be saved. We didn’t count, but it was a lot. 

 

Muhammad Irfan continues to put together action and fight sequences that are just as spectacular as they are violent. One of Tjahjanto’s most consistent partners in crime, starting out choreographing fights for Headshot, Irfan’s fight and stunt work is second to none. As beautiful as it is brutal Ifran’s statement from the opening scene is, we go a minimum of one hundred percent or we don’t go at all. The set pieces are shot, paced and edited in way that ensured that actors and stunt performers could give that one hundred percent every second of every take. As a connoisseur that particularly loves long takes and a distant camera we understand that this isn’t like classic martial arts cinema, that immersion is part of the game here. Still, shot mostly at mid range you can see all the brutal choreography that Irfan has put together.

 

If felt like there were a whole lot more swords involved this time around, and not just because the opening set piece involved many, so many, dead yakuza. From the filmmaker who often shared pics of their cowled offspring when they were young, calling them ninjas, to honoring the whistling death from Shogun Assassin (according to Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky, which only means I have to go back and watch that again), Tjahjanto’s soft spot for Japanese cult cinema and culture has fully shown up in his work now. But seriously, there is a metric ton of blade action in this one, and we love it. 

 

Don’t fret ballistic buffs, the Tjahjanto arsenal is all here with all manner of pistols and machine guns, blowing up chests and blowing out brains. Before publishing this review we had written two paragraphs about our own pet peeves in action cinema which is lack of gunsmoke and lame muzzle flashes that don’t flash or illuminate. Purely subjective of course and we thought one of those points of contention had been evaded in the opening scene when gunsmoke played a part in the action, but then it was quickly dropped and cinematic life carried on with nary a thought about reality. We know, we know. We’re done, we’re moving on now. 

 

Tjahjanto and their camera team continue to explore the space around each action set piece while keeping a very active camera. The director loves using lots of overhead shots and might be harboring a festish for tilts. As we said before, they’re not shooting a classically inspired action movie here, so Tjahjanto won’t sit back and let the action and actors have all the fun. Perhaps there was too much going on at once sometimes and likely some moments got lost in the calamity - sometimes its a little tight, sometimes a little too fast, sometimes too jerky - which only means that the movie will require a rewatch, or two, okay three, to understand just how much work and effort the team has put into each action set piece. You’ve already lost count how many times you watched his previous films like The Big 4 and The Night Comes For Us, haven’t you? We thought so. The Shadow Strays will be just as rewatchable. 

 

If we were to get serious for a moment here there is a subtext about parenthood going on here. We’ve got 13 and Umbra’s relationship, Monji and his mother which then turns into 13 searching for him when he disappears. Then there is the father and son political duo. At the time that Tjhajanto was writing The Shadow Strays the amount of political corruption that was going on at the time compelled him to include it in the story, to make it the root of all the evil that 13 will encounter on her self-appointed mission to get Monji back. Tjahjanto wasn’t present at the Q&A to answer about the subtext and no one brought up anything about what parent issues influenced the story. 

 

Before we conclude we do have to point out that The Shadow Strays is a remarkable action debut for lead actress, Aurora Ribero. They are someone, that until this movie had no prior action movie experience but knuckled down for four months of training before production began and they absolutely smashed it. You’d think they were doing this all the time. From the frustration of restless adolescence, to the fierceness of an impromptu mother protector Ribero’s about face on their career trajectory is going to turn heads at home in Indonesia and around the World. They did express an alarming amount of joy when describing shooting some of the knife scenes during the post-screening Q&A. A new beast has awaken. Ribero likes the stabby things. 

 

Look, we all know that Timo Tjahjanto is among the best in the action cinema business. For all hype and laurels that we have placed on stunt professionals turned directors and their work that has elevated the action cinema genre and our expectations, few plains clothes directors can achieve that same level of quality and intensity. Tjahjanto is only one of a handful at best that can do it as well.

 

They are now at the point in their career that the mere mention of their name in relation to action cinema makes fans start salivating. That’s why he wasn’t at the follow-up matinee screening of their film, because they had to jet back to the set of their Hollywood debut feature action movie. A gig wholly deserved because time and time again they bring thrilling action cinema, often holy-fuck violent action films that set them apart from others. That’s that early horror side of Tjahjanto that sneaks in every now and then, the side of the filmmaker that doesn’t shy away from blood and gore. 

 

The Shadow Strays is no exception. This is peak ultra-violent action cinema. 

 

The Shadow Strays had its world premiere at TIFF this weekend. It will debut worldwide on Netflix on October 17th.