The Raid 2
10/10. just been to a pre release screening of this. i've seen a lot of action films and this is something else, my palms were sweating by the time i came out.
i only kind of liked the first, this is in a different league though. i don't think i've winced as much in a film as i did in this. the choreography of the action is astounding, i can't believe no one was killed making it!
best bits - car chase, kitchen, hammer.
that's all you need to know.
i only kind of liked the first, this is in a different league though. i don't think i've winced as much in a film as i did in this. the choreography of the action is astounding, i can't believe no one was killed making it!
best bits - car chase, kitchen, hammer.
that's all you need to know.
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Warning...
"Strong bloody violence, gore":cool:
Damn I'll have to wait and see if the do a dubbed version on DVD
To be honest, I don't think it's really a dialogue-driven film...:D
You may think so but my OH is severely dyslexic and watching a subtitled film for him is almost impossible
It's probably best watched with a game controller in your hands.
Oh come on.
This, like the first one, is a kung fu (OK, technically Pencak Silat) flick. As such, the first one was bloody good and the sequel looks like more of the same.
9/10
Great action, generic boring story which made the movie drag on way too long
BiB is more than enough reason for me to go and see it
On the contrary, it's actually much more dialogue heavy than the first film. The plot, involving the main character going undercover and getting caught in the crossfire of two warring families, is reminiscent of The Departed. Just a lot more violent. The first third is quite slow paced and you need to pay attention to who's who, before the more action driven third act rolls around. Still, an excellent move, if not as balls-out non-stop mayhem as The Raid.
The first one was ruined by fast shakey cutting - cuts every few seconds in fights so you couldn't actually see what was going on and wouldn't actually need anyone good at martial arts as they would only need to do one move at any one time.
When there was the odd 5seconds of steady shots of fighting (about two in the whole film) the fighting looked good.
It amazes me when directors 'hide' action in bad camerawork - fight scenes have narratives and mini-arcs when done well i.e. the Matrix lobby scene and the Equilibrium equivalent both of which had solid camerawork, you could see what was going on in the scene and at the end you could see where the characters had gone and why.
In the new Robocop movie where he is in a warehouse fighting exercise the camera was all over the place and therefore the narrative lost leaving you not really knowing what had gone on apart from some people being shot and Robocop getting up to the other end of the warehouse.
The new Captain America film was just as bad.
Good post and I agree completely, shame Captain America 2 follows this lazy method, hopefully won't detract from the movie so much.
OP is right - car chase, kitchen, hammer but add to that metal baseball bat, machete and shotgun and you have one of the best movies of the year. The hammer attack is one of the most mental/crazy/f*cked up things i've seen but brilliantly executed.
The martial arts choreography is just astounding. Well done Gareth Evans and bring on The Raid 3 (yes, there will another sequel to bring everything to a close).
A little bit overlong and, as someone said, the first third drags a bit but the fight scenes. The car chase. The hammers .. the .. everything
What made it even better was that i was actually in the cinema on my own so i was getting very jumpy in my seat and bobbing up and down along to the action .. if anyone popped in to the projection room and looked out, they'd have thought i was having a seizure
It's not the fast paced, all out action movie that the first one was, but its still a damn fine film.
The story is indeed similar to The Departed, and there are shades of The Godfather as well. Therefore it is more dialogue based than the first movie, but when the action sequences come they are just as good, if not better than the first movie...and to anyone says it is boring there are NINETEEN fight sequences, and they get more intense and violent as the movie goes on.
The final fight in a kitchen is epic, and rivals and famous fight sequence in other martial arts movies.
The car chase is just insane...and all done pretty much for real with very little CGI...even the cameramen are practically doing stunt work to capture the action.
A fight involving hammers...a baseball bat (and ball) sequence...and even a return for the awesome Yayan Ruihan (Prakaso), the bearded fighter from the first movie.
Just don't expect the stripped down narrative of the first movie and you should thoroughly enjoy it.
TOTALLY disagree about the camerawork in the first film - I thought the filmmakers wisely chose to keep the cameras far back enough to capture the fight scenes fully, so that you could fully appreciate the moves and choreography. And they did NOT use a lot of quick cutting and jump cuts to enhance these scenes - seriously, I think you must have watched a different movie to me. That was precisely what made the movie work for me, the fact that you could see the fight sequences in all of their glory with minimal camera trickery.
Oh, and your description of the scene in Robocop in the warehouse training scene? There were no 'people' being shot in that scene (apart from Jackie Earl Hailey's character), he was shooting multiple robots. And it was very obvious what was going on and I saw no confusion at all due to dodgy camerawork.
The Captain America movie I saw a few months back and cannot remember specifically regarding the camerawork, but I certainly do not have any memories of issues with the camerawork.
And finally...a tripod? Seriously, do you think it's 1935 or something? Please tell me how you would film frantic fight and action scenes with a stationery camera on a tripod?