The Raid: Redemption

After seeing the trailer, I knew I had to see this movie. Rarely our my high expectation met but The Raid surpassed it. If your seeing this movie, it's because you want to see action and The Raid hit every mark. The action is a mix of shootouts, hand to hand weapons, and mostly good ol' fashioned fists.

The Raid proves again how far behind American action films are. I've seen other great foreign action films like Ong-Bak, The Protector, and Ip man but The Raid surpasses them by highlighting a martial art style not shown in any recent films. Its brutal and never lets up. It's not your typical ultra clean fighting that has been done to death but something that looks real and desperate at times as people try to survive outnumbered.

Story wise it isn't anything great but at the same time it's better than most martial arts films due to interesting twists and being incredibly well paced to before you know it its over and you want more.

If your a fan of action films, there isn't any better out there now or any even close in decades past.

My number one list action movie is The Matrix because it balanced the depth of the story with the action. Somewhere among the top list, there was also The Dark Knight for the same reason. However, when speaking only 'action', I used to choose a Hongkong movie, Flashpoint, starred by Donnie Yen. Before Flashpoint, I'll choose a Thailand movie, Ong Bak which launched Tony Jaa career internationally. Now, when I speak an action movie that speak for the action, I will choose an Indonesia movie, 'THE RAID', choreographed by Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhiyan and starred by them.

The problem with Donnie Yen's Flashpoint was you need to wait about one hour and fifteen minutes to get the action really start but when it started, it was really worth to wait. The fight between Donnie Yen and Collin Chou, inspired by MMA especially BJJ was so well choreographed and made audience hold their breath and asking "are this sh*t a real thing?". In Evans' latest, THE RAID, you won't need those one hour and fifteen minutes because he already made the audience gasps in the first fifteen minutes.

I wouldn't say a thing about Ong Bak because in my opinion, Merantau was more superior than Ong Bak. The problem with Merantau was Gareth was trying to bring audience to understand the culture of Silat first because showing the full action.You can said, Merantau was like Yamakasi doing for parkour while The Raid was the B-13 of silat.

It is useless to review this movie from the plot because there wasn't any significant plot. The plot was made only to bridge between one action scene to other action scene. But d*mn! Even with the weak dialog and cliché plot, Gareth executed it well so we, the audience, didn't have time to analyze this or that. What we know, we were flooded by f*cking awesome action movies from infiltration scene, massacre scene, and of course, martial art scenes when the characters have run out of bullets.

I remember when one of Merantau review said Merantau was Ong Bak when handled professionally. The same can be said with THE RAID. The Raid was Flashpoint with larger actions and handled professionally from the music, cinematography, and even the visual effect.

The music composed by Aria Prayogi and Fajar Yuskemal was like a combination between Hans Zimmer's Joker theme and Rage Against The Machine. It brought the audience immediately to the brutal tone of the movie. In some scenes, those music suddenly disappeared, leaving uneasiness to the audience. I wonder how Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park will interpret the scene to his score because Prayogi and Yuskemal score was perfect for the tone of this movie and it was really different with any Linkin Park score.

The sound effect, oh my, I hardly believe this is Indonesian movie. Even Hongkong movies are rarely have this good sound effect, You can differentiate between the bullet shot next to you to the bullet shot from the next room, The sound of knife slashing was so beautiful to listen and combined by the beautiful art of Silat, the scene was a masterpiece of a brutal dance of angel of death.

THE RAID has little visual effect but when they did, it was done amazingly and effectively. Frankly, prior to watch this movie, I was a little bit disappointed when I heard there will be slow-motion scene in the movie. However, Gareth proved me wrong. He was not Zack Snyder. The slow-motion was done only in one scene and perfectly executed which I hardly imagined how it should be done in other way.

Matt Flanery and Dimas Subhono as DOP played camera creatively and yet it captured all the motion perfectly. In fact, some scenes was like a scene taken from art movie due to their creative angle but it didn't reduce the brutal tone of the movie, didn't make the impact of every punch and kick weaker, in fact, in some scenes, it enhanced the "BAM!" factor.

The choreography was the factor which made this movie popular. I have said previously that even the fight scene between Donnie Yen and Collin Chou in Flashpoint had been surpassed by almost every fight scene in the movie. In Merantau, Gareth didn't want to show the brutal image of silat due to the main character of that movie was a naive and kind young man from village. In this movie, the characters are cops and bad guy, so either be killed or kill. Both Iko and Yayan have choreographed it so well so even one reviewer said "I didn't know there was so many ways to kill people until I saw this movie" and he was right. Jeff Imada (Bourne Identity) and Yuen Woo Ping will recognize these people from Indonesia and you'll probably hear about them in coming years among the top list of fight choreographer.

After watching this movie, I found myself lost my appetite to other action movies. For me, other action movies was a snack before I can watch the next Gareth Evans project, BERANDAL.

• Kunderemp -

OK, let me start by praising Iko Uwais. Of all the actors, this guy fits the character flawlessly and is a highly likable actor. I thought I'd root for Joe Taslim (Jaka) better because of his better looks and taller figure but Iko is perfect.

The movie in terms of story: interesting. The premise is very simple, a bunch of cops trapped in a hellish building filled with the devil's men who knows silat and dead set on killing the cops. However, I can't really tell whats going to happen next, and there's enough twists that actually works, even if they were rather cliché (the rookie, the corrupt officers, the help from a friendly neighbor, the .. i should stop.. or i'd spoil the movie). There's nothing new in terms of plot, but that's not really a big problem. I sure do hope Gareth can find better writers to write the story next time.

What I do like is the pacing. It goes boom boom boom boom! and then it rests a bit before going into suspense mode, scary mode, and then boom some more.

Line delivery? Not very good. Some lines were obviously translated from English (it's written by Gareth himself) and some sounds quite cheesy (overused in other movies), like A: "Why us? why now?" B: "Why not?" Or "I need to get in, my wife is sick" And a bunch of others..

Secondly, some of them are not professional actors and as an Indonesian watching an Indonesian movie without subtitles, I couldn't catch most of the things they said! I wished there were subtitles!! I wished there were Indonesian or English subtitles so that the foreigners in indo can enjoy the movie as well! (although there's one guy with a manado accent who talks funny, obviously a joke which will not be noticed by foreigners) They either talked really quickly, or had poor articulation/enunciation that I couldn't hear what they said and had to ask my sister, who also didn't catch what they said, and had to ask her boyfriend. The only one actor whom I can hear clearly even when talking fast is the gang boss (Ray Sahetapi).. A veteran actor, obviously trained for acting.

By the end of the movie we also concluded that the Indonesian vocabulary in terms of curse words is so very limited. The word "anjing!" (means "dog") is used over and over, by everybody.. And the word "bangsat" (a bedbug) a few times.. "Babi" (pig) once, "kampret" (a small bat) once... They all basically means the same thing "Bastard"... So, this either means we are a really polite culture.. Or that they're trying to avoid censor.. Or that the translator for gareth's script has not enough vocabulary list... or maybe I really didn't get the badness of those animal curse words..

I mean I can think of many English curse words that is not too dirty.. Like.. Scum, filth, bastard, jerk, son-of-a...., prick, damn, what the heck, slime.. OK I don't really know how to translate those words into spoken Indonesian either so...

The fights were great. I can't comment on the choreography because I'm not a professional, but it puts you on the edge of your seat, so I think that speaks for itself. They hit hard, they fall hard, they kill hard, they die hard. I thought that some fights could be sped up a bit, as some moves looks like it lags a bit in terms of syncing, but only by a bit. If not, it adds a real touch to the physicality of the movie.

Most of the girls shrieked and made wriggling sounds during fight sequences (yes, one really shrieked out loud), and many sighed a relief, almost awkward laugh, when those fight sequences end. Which, in my opinion, means that the fights were a great success.

As an animator I felt the CG was a bit...hmmm... CG blood is slightly overused, but still acceptable, but one shot stuck out like a sore finger to me, the one where one guy falls over and lands on a balcony ledge. I really wanted to fix that animation.. Hahahaa... But again, that's because I'm a trained animator, as other people in the cinema gasped in their seats thinking that was real etc.

All I know is, it lived up to my expectations (a minimal story fight movie). I look forward to Iko, Yayan, and Gareth's next collaboration, which is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0hYVksfyrQ Again, if you're an action movie fans, you'd probably like it.

I decided to wait a full day before writing a critical review on this movie to let my emotions die down - In conclusion i have nothing but praise for this movie.

If your goal is to walk into this movie and be psychologically challenged or expect great dialogue you will be disappointed. There are some movies that you need to walk into and know little of what will unfold to get the full cinematic experience. I always check the ratings of movies on IMDb before considering watching them and after reading some of the other user reviews on 'high octane' intensity and non stop fight scenes i in the least expected some good action in this movie. Even with that though i thought an entire movie could not be based on fighting scenes and score above an 8 on IMDb (boy was i wrong).

This movie is earning glowing reviews because of the action sequences filmed in the movie that place you in a cinematic experience where you actually feel like you are watching real men fight for their lives. It's nothing poetic with backflips and flexible positions but simply man vs man often equipping anything in the room to disarm/disable and kill their opponent. It places you in the hot seat viewing the closest things to actual killings - Now this isn't to say the movie slows down on blood spurts or zooms in when someone is getting their throat sliced - it simply shows it how it is, it's fast, real and intense.

In some of the other reviews you hear fans praising the knife fighting scenes. This movie was incredible with it's knife fights and how effective and swift they are in close quarters. The finish was always swiftly at the throat but that wasn't before 2 to 3 lightning touches to the chest/quads or arms to disable an opponent or render them shocked in pain.

Heres the bottom line: This movie was made on the smallest budget i've ever seen for any movie to hit international screens. The director and all actors are no names that you have never heard however i guarantee that you will never watch another action film again because the raid is groundbreaking in it's reality/intensity and quality of choreography.

Every movie that scores high ratings appeals to a certain group of audiences. This is a very specific movie but is well deserving of the praise it is receiving from our users at IMDb. It is my hope to see more of this action from the director and actors cause i honestly don't think i can ever watch a fighting movie again.

MUST WATCH 10/10 Excellent.

This is a relentless and very impressive action/martial arts movie. The fight scenes are probably from the best ones I have ever seen and the understated performances of the protagonists fit perfectly here. I m wondering how did I miss this 10 years ago...probably because it's Indonesian! Written and directed by a Welsh guy -who discovered the Indonesian lead Iko- together with a tight editing and insane fight scenes (mostly Indonesian and some mixed martial arts) makes this a must to watch for fans of the martial arts genre and not only. If you want to stay bolted at your seat while watching an action film -and you don't mind of course the violence- then check this out. From the top 10 contemporary martial arts flicks out there, 9/10.