The release of films in the fighting genre is now quite rare. One of these movie unicorns turned out to be an Indonesian film Gareth Evans "The Raid", quite a sensation and actively discussed among fans of action films. On the wave of this success Evans reworks his old idea and, three years later, releases the second part, which localizers called simply "Raid 2" (in original "The Raid 2: Berandal"). This is what we will talk about in detail.
In general, you need to understand that a “film fight” is an artistic device. It cannot exist on its own, otherwise the right hand will not know what the left hand will do. Screen combat always exists in inextricable connection with drama, with plot dynamics, cause-and-effect relationships and motivation. I'm not talking about some bedroom fight between Richard Gere and Julia Roberts (although the same rules apply there), I'm talking about a professionally choreographed, high-concept fight. All the classics of the fighting game genre did this, and the tendency to wash out the meaning in such films has emerged in the last 15 years, during which the genre has been, if not in a state of ashes, then at least in stagnation. As a rule, this is expressed in the fact that the plot and acting fade into the tenth plan, and the emphasis is on fights, choreography, tricking, on-screen cruelty and so on. However, in the last few years, even the choreography and technology for filming on-screen fights has been marking time, either copying themselves or well-known examples, or dull fluff with poor editing. Everything interesting in this genre has moved into short films that are shot by various stunt teams from amateurs to professionals.
Therefore, against the backdrop of numerous modern frivolous crafts, “Raid 2"(like the first part) looks fresh, angry and even expensive in some places, but if you dig deeper, the product is largely secondary.
Fans and connoisseurs of martial arts cinema, who have a decent amount of viewing and knowledge behind them, will not find anything in “The Raid 2” fundamentally new. This does not mean that they will not like him, no, it’s just that placing any revolutionary hopes on him is completely unjustified. These are the same hectic battles with opponents who seem to be fed along a conveyor belt, and they obediently attack one by one, endless bloodshed and cruelty that are not always appropriate, a main character who cannot be killed, and who does not bleed from cut tendons and bullets. holes, which is why the limit of empathy for him ends halfway through the film. The final duel in the kitchen was expected to be epic, but it turned out to be dramaturgically incorrectly built and was drawn out so much that I sat and thought: when will one of them finally die? The scene in the subway is simply faceless; it is plot-wise justified, but technically and aesthetically it is completely worthless; it could easily be cut out of the film.
There is also no special creative thought or concept in the choreography as such. The concept of pencak silat does not justify itself, because its aesthetics are not revealed, and everything is not done at the highest technical level (to the leading actor Iko Yuwaisu while there is a clear lack of screen technology, and the character Yayana Rukhyana practically merged), so often it turns out just threshing. You could see all this in Evans’ previous works - “Merantau” and “The Raid”, and hundreds of other films. And it turned out that for me the artistic component of the film turned out to be much higher and more interesting than the battles. The fights, the turmoil and the hammering of heads simply tired me out. The first time I watched concentrated action, I regretted that I couldn’t rewind it. Everything else, plot, intrigue, acting, sound, color, music - turned out to be at a very decent level of crime drama. The cinematography is inventive in conveying atmosphere or tension, but again when it doesn't come directly to the action. Yes, there are long takes without cuts, yes, the extras convincingly fall and work well (most importantly, almost imperceptibly for the viewer’s eye) with protective equipment, but in general the operator put the camera on his hand and scratched her head. Although, of course, since the release of Evans’s first full-length film “Merantau”, the progress of camera work is obvious.
If we talk about the main character, then there is a rapid process of turning him into a killing machine, whose motivation for his actions is not very clear. Rama as a character gradually disappears. He just kills everyone like a bot.
Next, I would like to mention a few oddities and mistakes that confused me:
- Why did they need to take Ram in a car somewhere to the fields to kill him, when it could have been done right there, when he was lying on the floor unconscious?
- Why does the entire multinational mafia walk around with a minimal set of firearms and almost the entire film runs around with fittings (on bikes, in expensive suits, but with pipes and knives)? And the police too, by the way.
- Why would a crowd of prisoners break the flimsy door in the toilet (which turned out to be simply magically strong, and, in particular, its latch), when the walls of the toilet do not reach the ceiling? He climbed over the wall and that was it. Although I know that this scene was invented long before the first “Raid” and for a completely different project. And I can even understand that this was done for on-screen suspense. But, alas, it didn’t work.
In general, the film is quite tightly tailored, clear, not at all complicated, but at the same time it is far from being a class B film. Gareth Evans and his team have obvious potential, but when foreign reviews call the film “the best action movie of its time” - this is too loud said.
It does not yet reach, for example, either the Thai “Ong Bak” or the Vietnamese “Rebel”, but is only a modernized version of Evans’ previous works.
Author: Ravenside
The first is "...and a hundred other films...". Ah, if “Raid -2” had hundreds of similarities))), and represented a kind of “bottom” among hundreds of similarities about which dozens of modern best BI films and a few masterpieces were based...
Secondly, how easy it is to talk about a worthy (really!) film in a critical manner. This is not an amateur movie to dissect - there is room to get smart))).
I was especially pleased with the smart questions))).
From the category - who let Bruce Lee into the Coliseum to kill the hero Norris? Or why Jackie Chan defeats the hero (much more serious in fights) Urquidez in "Diner..."? Why do knife fights in movies last three to five minutes, when in real life they are completed in a maximum of ten seconds?
There is only one answer - it’s Cinema))). In the theater, we don’t demand that there be fights, like in the movies)...
Answer to question number two:
Under Indonesian law, illegal possession of firearms can be punishable by death.
Even if you only have a pistol and a dozen rounds of ammunition.
wesker,
What about the cops? Are cops running around unarmed to even the odds? In the end, one of the bandit heroes took the gun. And in the first Raid? For some reason, no laws stopped anyone. It still seems to me that the issue is not the laws. In American films "with fights" everyone also prefers to fight rather than shoot))
Raid 2 is just a great movie. I think that the film came out strong both in terms of plot and acting, for its genre. But the main thing is the fighting. Their production and execution are simply a standard of quality. I would also include the charismatic heroes, driving music and uncompromising brutal scenes as advantages. As I said before.
Raid 2 - Movie 10th. Tony has great fights, but everything else is mediocre. The raid is strong from all sides.
I'm not really a Tony Jaa fan at all. However, Ong-Bak compared with Reid only in terms of influence on the genre. Ong-Bak is in many ways a revolutionary film for the modern fighting game in cinema. Raid (neither the first nor the second) - no. Well, this is IMHO, of course.)