 |
| Picture credit to The Hollywood Reporter
Was I going to turn down a chance to see The Raid 2 weeks before it's released in the UK, when the director Gareth Evans and lead star Iko Uwais, DUH! Of course not. To put it simply - this is possibly the best action/martial arts film I've ever seen! Thanks to Film4 Fright Fest for organising this event!
As most of you know the film is set just two hours after the first one, opening a pretty savage scene that is beautifully shot. This is all I'm going to say about the story as I really do not want to ruin anything for anyone. Compared to the original Raid this film has a slow start, this is definitely due to developing more of a story and emphasise the struggle of the 'dirty cops' within the city. I personally preferred this approach as I finally found myself getting to know Rama (Iko Uwais) character in more depth and feel a bit more emotion from him.
However this slow start does not stop the film taking off in a huge way when there is a fight involved, every single fight in this movie had my palms sweating, the audience cheering and chanting once it had finished. The fight scene which stood out to me and almost everyone in the audience was the kitchen scene about 3/4 into the film - it's possibly the longest and most intense one-on-one martial arts fight I've ever seen. It had me gasping for breath and practically standing up on my chair, I couldn't remove my eyes from the screen. Every single punch, kick and swipe was done to perfection and I cannot even begin to imagine the amount of training those guys (and girl) had to go through to be able to do the stuff they do. Bravo to whoever choreographed this film, it was 10 times more technical than the first.
The film is around 2.5 hours long which seems to be the perfect amount, and as I said earlier as just the right amount of emotion/story arc as well as epic 'battles'. I'm not sure if the theatrical release in the UK will be cut - as the American version is (this length version was the uncut).
I also just want to make note that Gareth Evans directing style is absolutely outstanding in this, the shots he uses for the fight scenes and the editing style are done beautifully. I've never seen a martial arts film use some of the techniques he did and he pulled it off. As a film student he is a huge inspiration for me and I will definitely be looking into his style in future film endeavors.
I cannot wait for the third installment of this franchise as they seem to be getting bigger and better. It was a privilege to have been able to get tickets to this screening, and I urge you all to go and see it if you enjoyed the first one.
It'll blow your mind, literally.
Amy x
|
2 April 2014
0 comments:
Post a Comment