Growing up in Montana, there were certain shows that I would watch on TV on Saturday afternoons before pro wrestling on TBS. There was MTV’s Week in Rock or even Three Stooges reruns, but a big one for me was the martial arts films. You know, the ones that had the English badly dubbed in and were made fun of by people like Michael Winslow’s character in the Police Academy films. Even though the acting was not so great, it was just fun to watch the action. With all of the advancement in cinema, I wondered if The Furious would change with the times as well.
Directed by Kenji Tanigaki (Legend of Seven Monks), this casts includes Xie Miao, Joe Taslim, Yang Enyou, Brian Le, Sahajak Boonthanakit and Joey Iwanaga. A mute man in Southeastern Asia (Xie) is spending time with his daughter (Enyou) who is about to go back to living with her grandmother, but the day before that happens, she is kidnapped by people in a human trafficking ring. As he goes to rescue her, he meets up with Navin (Taslim), a journalist who is trying to uncover the ring and corruption while looking for his missing wife.
First off, this is not your normal movie because it is a pure action film at its core. There are great performances by this cast for the type of film it is if for no other reason from the martial arts choreography alone. Miao does a great job especially since he has no dialog by letting his physical acting do the talking for him, while Enyou works off of him with her own wide range of emotions both with and without him. Mostly being filmed in Bangkok, I also enjoyed how the film was shot and kept its surroundings in their own “bubble” whether it was the police station, on the streets, or in the places the captors were being held. Each and every scene made me feel like being in different fighting arenas like in a martial arts video game.
Even though the script is basic and sometimes predictable, it is important to look of what kind of film it is. There are the storylines of trying to show the corruption and evil of smuggling rings, along with the relationships between the characters, but it is still an action movie. And for what type of film this is, I LOVED IT!!! Is this film on the legendary level of Enter the Dragon? No, but it is still great and is one of the best martial arts films I have seen in years. It keeps that old school style while bringing “innovative deaths” like in the John Wick films and even made me chuckle with a couple of the kills. Also like the standard action film, the body count is VERY high in this, but it is still a ton of fun, so The Furious gets my coveted full price in the theaters recommendation.