The Raid 2 – First Impressions

We were fortunate to attend a screening last night of The Raid 2, what else can we say folks, you’re in for a riot of mind blowing, symphonic mayhem – (with some extraordinary camera angles!) finely orchestrated by pioneering Welsh director Gareth Evans.

Since this is longer than The Raid: Redemption (by a good forty minutes) there is more time to enrich the film with substance, depth and a decent amount of character development. This makes the harrowing, bone-crunching fight scenes all the more absorbing and emotionally engaging – you actually care about what happens, especially to the central figure, Rama, played by Iko Uwais.

This Silat-martial-arts-driven crime epic comprises some nineteen fight sequences. The choreography is frenetic, inventive and unrelentingly brutal; ranging from such environments as a wide-open kitchen to a muddy prison yard to the back seat of a speeding car. This car chase scene is one of the most intense, daredevil and enthralling ever made; as good as anything you may have seen in the much bigger budget Bourne films and it drew a round of applause from the audience. At times the violence can be very graphic, not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach!

This rollercoaster of a movie hits US cinemas on 28th March and UK theatres on 11th April, look out for it and hold on to your seats; we can’t wait to see it again!

Synopsis
He thought it was over. After fighting his way out of a building filled with gangsters and madmen – a fight that left the bodies of police and gangsters alike piled in the halls – rookie Jakarta cop Rama thought it was done and he could resume a normal life. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Formidable though they may have been, Rama’s opponents in that fateful building were nothing more than small fish swimming in a pond much larger than he ever dreamed possible. And his triumph over the small fry has attracted the attention of the predators farther up the food chain. His family at risk, Rama has only one choice to protect his infant son and wife: He must go undercover to enter the criminal underworld himself and climb through the hierarchy of competing forces until it leads him to the corrupt politicians and police pulling the strings at the top of the heap.

And so Rama begins a new odyssey of violence, a journey that will force him to set aside his own life and history and take on a new identity as the violent offender “Yuda.” In prison he must gain the confidence of Uco – the son of a prominent gang kingpin – to join the gang himself, laying his own life on the line in a desperate all-or-nothing gambit to bring the whole rotten enterprise to an end.

You can recap on our review of The Raid: Redemption, then check out the trailer and TV spots for The Raid 2 below.

Just in case you need reminding, here’s the UK TV spot:

Trailer:

And if you don’t mind spoilers, take a look at this special 10 minute behind the scenes featurette: