Somewhere in ‘Southeast Asia’ Chinese handyman Wang Wei earns his living fixing things around the neighbourhood. His daughter Rainy has been staying with him throughout the Summer and is due to go back home, to her mother and school. When Rainy is kidnapped by a child trafficking ring, Wang Wei goes on the hunt for those responsible, starting at the bottom and working his way up to those in charge of it - hammer in hand. In his search for his daughter he crosses paths with Navin who has picked up where his wife Matia left off after she went missing, investigating the same child trafficking ring. They join forces, laying one vicious beatdown after another on layers of corruption and criminality, each more deadly than the last.
Let us start with some context, first.
After a year or so of keeping tight-lipped about it, we mentioned in a news related article that we were invited by XYZ Films to be a ringer during their sales showcase for The Furious during TIFF in 2024. We were asked to get hyped and be vocal about the footage - across three clips - they were going to show potential buyers that afternoon. Very quickly we knew we did not have to do much as the whole room was buzzing by the end of the first clip alone. We also knew that we needed the film in its entirety in our eyeballs as fast as humanly possible - which, agonizingly, turned out to be close to two years later.
Thankfully, the ScreenAnarchy family has steered clear from it- at the risk of enduring bodily harm induced by yours truly- from taking away the chance to review this instant masterpiece. We really wanted this to be a full circle moment for us. There was also the understanding that after watching The Furious we knew more ways to induce said harm. A lot of it involves a hammer.
Context set, let's get into it!
The story by the quartet of Mak Tin Shum, Lei Zhilong, Shum Kwan Sin and Frank Hui is familiar to anyone who has seen their fair shake of action cinema over the years. It is the framework and structure by which our heroes are propelled through this seedy underworld of child trafficking.
On paper The Furious is a Hong Kong action film but it was cast and the performances filmed in a way with the intention of it being an international action film; an action film anyone, anywhere can enjoy.
Action is universal, English is not. Americans Brian Le and Joey Iwanaga are SoCal natives (Iwanaga spent a large chunk of their life there, either way) so English is and was their first language. Then there are native speakers like Indonesian actor and one of our leads, Joe Taslim, and Thai actor Sahajak Boonthanakit who speak the King's English with great ease.
Our other lead actor, Miao Xie, from China, does not speak English though his character Wei has a condition in their case which makes them the exception. Others, where English is not their native or second language - like fan-fave Yaya Ruhian from Indonesia, who can speak conversational English, just not at a performance level - were dubbed, and in an even number of scenes the ADR happened off screen, while we are not focused on their faces and mouths. Oh, and the person who dubbed Thai actress JeeJa Yanin’s character, Matia, in the prologue? Quite literally by accident, one of our favorites, Mattie Do, from Laos.
Director Kenji Tanigaki and action director Kensuke Sonomura are both from Japan. The cinematographer, Meteor Cheung, not only has a fuck-off cool name, but is from Hong Kong. Truly a Pan-Asian and international cast and crew have come together to make this an internationally comfortable viewing experience. You know, before the fists and legs start flying.
We think that a round of applause for on-set translators is required.
We continue with three key folks behind the camera, what we call, in honor of The Furious’s Hong Kong roots, the Heroic Trio: Kenji Tanigaki, Kensuke Sonomura and Meteor Cheung.
Tanigaki is a contemporary O.G. of stunt performers and coordinators who are also plying their trade behind the camera. The number of stunt professionals getting behind the camera is growing steadily the past decade or so. Tanigaki, however, has been doing it for almost twenty-five years. He was the trend before it was trendy.
There are layers in each fight. We marvelled at how the action shifts from the ground to the air rapidly and effortlessly. Tanigaki expertly guides his crew to capture action that starts at the feet, switches to the torso, to the head, and higher. From the ground to dangling from an overheard light - or Ruhian climbing up a ladder Joe Taslim is holding in defence just at his head - and sometimes all at once, attacks are coming from everywhere at near dizzying pace. Find you opponant's weakness and entry wherever and however you can.
Sonomura was the action director behind current faves Ghost Killer and the Baby Assassins franchise. Their grapple and tussle style of action choreography stands out as its own distinct style, one that we have certainly grown to appreciate over each subsequent chapters of Baby Assassins and one that’s becoming increasingly recognizable from the first exaggerated rippling jacket sound in the SFX.
One of the things that has really impressed us with Sonomura’s fight choreography over the last few years is the grappling, the close quarters body-on-body contact, and the attempt at blocking your attackers' moves merely by proximity and holding on to them as they try to attack you.
Apart from the kicks, the punches, and the jabs, and the blows, is the immobilization, the attempts to block, to thwart, to hinder the attackers by kicking, blocking, and disrupting stances. Equal time is spent focusing on obstruction of an attacker as with the attack itself. The defence is just as important as the offence.
The volume of attack is historically martial arts action has been focused on the one on one confrontation. Key scenes like Bruce Lee taking on the Japanese dojo in Chinese connection, Jet Li doing the same again in Fist of Legend. They were scenes constructed to happen one attacker at a time. The closest that comes to what is happening here on screen is the Ten Black Belt fight in Donnie Yen and Wilson Yip’s Ip Man.
Hong Kong and China’s martial arts legacy is in The Furious’s DNA, from a child dangle in the first act that could remind fans of that infamous scene from Fatal Termination, fight scenes that take place in an ice factory (Fist of Fury) to the climactic fight in the police headquarters, specifically when Joey Iwanaga strolls in and joins the rumble. Iwanaga is to The Furious what Ken Lo was to Drunken Master 2; a villain mostly on the periphery, he saves his worst for last in the blistering finale, attempting to kick the shit out of anyone who isn’t on his side. Then there is the sliver of heroic bloodshed, a common theme in Hong Kong's Golden Age of action cinema, but we have to leave it at that is to not spoil it for you.
The Furious sets itself apart from its contemporaries in every fight. There's one fight after another where our heroes and our villains are often holding on to two, three, four attackers at a time, while dishing out blows with their fists and kicks with their legs. In an early scene where Wei jumps into a martial arts octagon, and attackers flood the tiny arena. He grabs one, then another steps in, he grabs that one and holds on to both of them. Wait, there’s more! Then another one comes in, and so he's standing on to three AND he's holding on to three more before he then starts peeling him off with his ball peen hammer, one after the other. Wei has six guys trapped underneath his legs before he starts laying the beat down with his hammer of death.
Finally there is Cheung, a cinematographer whose resume would never suggest that they were up for the challenge of capturing fight choreography as well as they did. After watching The Furious you would think they had been doing it all throughout their career.
We are someone who has favored wide shots over in-your-face filming and staging. We prefer it because we want to take in the fight choreography and the staging. We have never felt the need to ‘BE A PART OF THE ACTION!!!’ when it comes to fighting in films.
We know how we like our steak when it comes to shooting action (medium rare and shot wide) and you would be hard pressed to get us to like our steak well done (totally immersive). Yet, somehow, this Heroic Trio started lobbing burnt ends at us - and we liked it. Because even in its close proximity there was clarity. Because everyone knew the choreography, from the actors, their stunt doubles, through to Cheung and his camera team, no details were missed in Sonomura’s choreography.
Seldom is attention given to these minute movements like leg kicks and blocks, not like they were in martial arts cinema’s kung fu craze during the 70s where these films from Mainland China and Hong Kong paid particular attention to forms and traditional combat styles. This Heroic Trio do pay attention to, and focus on these moments, but under the speed and intensity of full-on combat. It is exhilarating.
From the word go The Furious launches into one brutal melee after another. This is the best martial arts and fighting action film of the last 10 years, hands down. That is no hyperbole - we do not see this being beaten by anyone for a while.
But what a time to be alive in this era of hold-my-beer action filmmaking with these filmmakers, with stunt professionals turned directors, coming in one after the other, elevating the genre with action coordinators giving fresh, innovative choreography, with amazing set pieces and brutal action caught by a team who knows where to be at the exact moments where it matters the most. It is a stunning group effort, meticulously planned out and executed by the Heroic Trio and the performers, the actors and their stunt performers in front of the camera.
The work of the director, the fight choreographer, and the cinematographer, all three working together as one to capture the movements, the punches, the blocks, the grapples, the kicks - blow by blow from the floor through to the waist, the torso up to the air The Furious is now the best you will have seen.
There is so much to see that repeat viewings will reveal more action magic we are sure that we had missed during our screening. The Furious demands your attention. The action world has been served notice - this is the champion of action and fighting cinema.