The Raid 2 [Serbuan maut 2] (2014)
AKA The Raid 2: Berandal, The Raid: Retaliation
Starring Iko Uwais, Arifin Putra, Oka Antara, Tio Pakusadewo, Julie Estelle, Ryuhei Matsuda, Kenichi Endo, Kazuki Kitamura, Cecep Arif Rahman, Cok Simbara, Yayan Ruhian, Very Tri Yulisman
Directed by Gareth Evans
Expectations: Super high. It’s The Raid 2, c’mon now!
Nope, not as good as the first. And I wasn’t even as super head-over-heels about The Raid as everyone else seemed to be. I thought it was awesome, don’t get me wrong, but a re-watch just a few days ago confirmed to me that it’s a film I will always appreciate more than love. This relates directly to how brutal and realistic the choreography is — which is also why the film is so notable and unique — so for me The Raid 2 wasn’t as good as the first because it embraces that brutal, realistic choreography and goes even further. Is that the best logic to judge the film on? No, of course not, but my brain just has a hard time extracting the same gleeful joy from this type of martial arts film compared to something with a lighter tone. While The Raid still felt somewhat connected to the martial arts films that inspired it, the action in The Raid 2 feels different.
Since I love auteur theory, I suppose we can say that if Gareth Evans’ Merantau was a love letter to Hong Kong martial arts films and specifically Jackie Chan’s, The Raid was Evans, Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian finding their own stride based on what worked in Merantau. But to me The Raid 2 seems to be built only on the shoulders of The Raid, so your enjoyment of its action will stem directly from how much enjoyment you got out of the brutal, bone-crunching fights in The Raid. Personally, Merantau remains my favorite of their films, but with that said I can’t deny that The Raid 2 — specifically one fight towards the end — sets a new bar for martial arts film battles. The kitchen fight contains some of the most intense, brutal and incredibly choreographed martial arts ever projected onto the silver screen.
For those familiar with Merantau and The Raid, you’re already aware of the prowess that Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian possess. For those that don’t know, in addition to acting and fighting on-screen, this fearsome duo has also done the martial arts choreography for all three of Evans’ films. The Raid 2 introduces us to another Silat master: Cecep Arif Rahman. Even before he fought Iko Uwais, I could tell from his presence that he was an ultimate badass. There was fire in his eyes, and I eagerly awaited its unleashing on our hero. By the end of the film I was not disappointed, and Cecep Arif Rahman has definitely earned his place in the martial arts film hall of fame… in his debut movie!
Now you might be reading all these flowery words about how awesome “this” was and how badass “that” was, and then wonder why there are only 3 stars up top. Here comes the hard part: tearing down a movie I really want to just have a good time with. If The Raid had no story, then The Raid 2 makes up for lost time and includes enough story for two movies. The only thing is that the story isn’t much of a story at all. The plot is all generic “cop going undercover in a gang” bullshit that you’ve seen done better in a ton of other films. But who cares, right? IT’S THE MOTHERFUCKING RAID!!!! ACTION ACTION ACTION!!! Well, when the film is 150 minutes long you do kinda have to worry about these things!
Even if I can forgive the clichéd story (which isn’t too hard for me), it’s almost impossible for me to overlook the film’s fatal flaw: its lack of character depth. Yeah, I know… “IT’S THE MOTHERFUCKING RAID!!!! Character depth? Are you fucking kidding me?” No, unfortunately I’m serious. And when cookie-cutter, obvious, and sometimes flat-out boring characters are combined with a seen-it-all-before story, I was merely left sitting there in the darkened theater waiting for the next action scene to start. Which is no way to watch an 150-minute movie. Perhaps this is a flaw in my brain, which was probably subliminally chanting IT’S THE MOTHERFUCKING RAID!!!! over and over while the film was running, and thus not allowing me to get swallowed up in the plot. Who knows? I guess I’ll just have to watch it again.
Despite all my misgivings and negative feelings while watching The Raid 2, I did end up enjoying it overall. It’s definitely not as good a film as The Raid, but it’s much more ambitious and wide in its scope. Evans never tries to just recreate the tightly contained badass of The Raid, and no matter what that deserves a big ol’ A for effort. I do have to say, though, I was really disappointed that many of the fights in the trailer were actually just short bursts of action in the movie instead of the full-fledged scenes the trailer makes you think they’re going to be. But whatever, The Raid 2 features the reigning champions of screen martial arts (Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian, and now Cecep Arif Rahman), so all you fight fiends need to check this one out for yourselves regardless of what I’m saying. (And by this point, a few weeks after release, I’m sure you already have!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG9uFX3uYq4
I really loved the first one so I’m pumped to watch this, but sadly there aren’t any theaters showing it in my area. Guess I’ll just have to wait for the DVD.
Ah, that stinks! I thought at least the BLVD theater would pick it up at some point, as it seemed like the movie was gonna be one of the big independent hot tickets of the year. Then it came out and somehow did worse than the original! So strange. Hope you enjoy it when you do see it. Just know it’s a completely different kind of movie. Also, have you seen Dredd? If you like The Raid, Dredd is basically the same thing and it’s really entertaining.
Yeah, I was also hoping they would get Wind Rises or Wolf Children since they showed Poppy Hill and Arriety there, but nothing doing. I’m rather disappointed.
I haven’t seen Dredd. Maybe I should; it might hold me over for a while.
I second the vote for Dredd as a worthwhile intermediary film. Thoroughly loved Dredd, and while it’s not as gut-punch awesome as the original Raid movie, it’s easily one of the best action flicks of the last few years.
Hahaha, I’m dumb. A new Miyazaki movie comes out and I didn’t even think about you reviewing it. Damn, I wish they had shown it. It played here for a week or so but I missed it. I was wondering if you were going to get to Wolf Children too, but you answered that before I could reply to this! The theater near me is actually doing a Ghibli series showing basically all of their features subtitled and on 35mm. I’ve missed them all so far (some fan I am), but I hope to see at least one or two.
I so want to love this because The Raid was one of my guilty pleasure finds of the last few years….. I had hoped this would continue the trend of violent, adult-oriented action films (not the PG13 shite we’ve had for a while now!) and I’m glad it delivers. Bit of a shame about the “story” elements not quite working, but then again, this is THE MOTHERFUCKING RAID AND WHO CARES!!! I mean…. er, ahem, it’s a shame they only went gangbusters on the action and not the story, right?
Well, I hope you enjoy it. It’s definitely got a lot going for it. The action is awesome, but even that was different than I expected. I don’t know, I think I might enjoy it more when I see it again. Perhaps there were intricacies in the story that I missed.
With you on most of this, and it’s 100% not as good as The Raid! For me, this one felt like it was leaning too much on Korean cinema (trying to pack in lush visuals, absurd characters, make the fighting more ‘poetic’ etc) – just reminded me of ‘Park Chan Wook Lite’.
Agree with the character depth too. If it was another 90-minute explosion you wouldn’t mind, but at way over two hours you need to be at least a bit invested in the characters…
It does have a Korean vibe to it. I haven’t seen a lot of Korean movies, but I definitely thought of Park Chan Wook while watching it. I respect the ambition of going for something completely different than the first film, but I can’t help but be somewhat disappointed. I’m interested to re-watch it and see how I feel after already knowing what it’s like.
Well, this one finally worked it’s way up to the top of my Netflix queue. You’re right, it’s not as good as the first one, and mainly for just having a really long story that didn’t really grab my attention. I do have to say that it picked up speed for me in the second half, but that was probably because the action scenes were coming faster and lasting longer. When it got into the plot, though, it got pretty boring.
As much as that kitchen fight was totally badass, I actually liked the car chase scene best. I think it was because the minor character suddenly turned into a badass car-fu master, and I was pleasantly surprised that this guy I didn’t think mattered suddenly gave me a whole lot of fun.
Yeah that story really drags this one down. It was noble to try that 180 degree turn when no one expected it, but I would’ve liked something more to come of it. I’ve been meaning to try watching this one again to see if I can get into the story better having seen it once. Part of my problem (and I don’t remember if this is in the review) was that I saw the trailer for this like 10 times, which was 10 times too many. If everything was a surprise I’m sure it would have been more exciting. Glad you got a chance to check it out, though!