Men Are Fighting
The Raid 1 & 2, Walled In, The Furious
My wife has been travelling for the past couple of weeks so I decided to have myself a little film festival for martial arts movies, a genre that she’s not really into. (Horror would have been another candidate but I like to save that for spooky season.)
I was a big fan of the 90’s era of martial arts movies starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li, but I haven’t really followed the genre since then. I think that filmmakers have tried to move on from the relatively family-friendly style of those days, where fights were almost like dances, into more realistic (read: bloody) combat. I admit that I’m a bit squeamish about this, and do still prefer fight scenes that I can enjoy without squirming the whole time.
The Raid
I’ve watched this before, but thought a revisit would be a good jumping off point. The film features a group of police officers invading a crime lord’s apartment building, which sets up a nice video-game-like structure where the heroes have to advance level-by-level to reach the top.
I have to admire the non-stop action, even though it means that there’s not much story. It’s an excellent showcase of pencak silat, the Indonesian martial art practiced by the stars. But I wish they had a bigger budget to make it look better. The film is quite visually monotonous, with dingy grey apartments and hallways that all look the same.
The Raid 2
I think this sequel might be a better movie than the first, but paradoxically, I didn’t enjoy it as much. I think it suffers from the expectations set by its predecessor. I went into it wanting to see wall-to-wall action scenes, but this film actually takes its time to set up a story. The lack of story was a flaw of The Raid, and in my opinion, they overcompensated in The Raid 2. I felt impatient, waiting for them to just start punching each other already.
The narrative is not actually bad, but feels maybe a little derivative of other undercover-cop/crime-family dramas like The Departed or, of course, The Godfather. I will say that the dramatic elements prove that Iko Uwais, the lead actor, is a compelling screen presence beyond his martial arts skills.
The climactic action scenes are worth the wait, though. My face was locked in a half-smiling, half-wincing expression for the last hour or so.
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
The main draw of this Hong Kong film is the depiction of the Kowloon Walled City. It’s amazing that a place like this actually existed, and it forms a cool backdrop for action scenes in narrow alleyways and multi-levelled rooftops.
Similar to The Raid 2, I was a bit bored by the story, which revolves around the intergenerational dynamics between crime factions fighting for turf in the Walled City. I suppose the title refers to the older triad bosses who are hanging onto lifelong grudges, but must step aside to make room for the younger generation. It’s hard for me to relate, frankly.
The action scenes do work well, except when some noticeable visual effects take me out of it. It appears that some CGI is used to intensify the stuntwork, like when a guy is thrown into a wall, and a bunch of CGI objects crash down from the wall. I don’t get why this is necessary; they’ve been making movies like this without visual effects for decades.
My favourite part of the movie is the villain character of King, played by Philip Ng. He’s styled like a caricature of the 80’s, with a shitty mullet and aviator glasses, and shouts “Wahoo!” while he’s fighting, like he’s Wario, and has superpowers for some reason, when none of the other characters do.
The Furious
This movie just came out this year, and ended up being my favourite of the lot. Crucially, the character motivations are easy to root for: one guy is looking for his daughter, and one guy is looking for his wife; they’ve both been abducted by a child-trafficking gang. Their team-up is satisfying both on a story level and on an action level, because the fight choreography incorporates cooperation.
Speaking of the fight choreography, there’s a lot of innovation here. It’s hard to describe, but a common technique that these characters use that I haven’t seen in other movies is to lean their whole body into their opponent, so that they’re almost horizontal. Sometimes, body weight is the only way to overcome a size mismatch, and it shows the character’s determination and resourcefulness.
My one complaint is that again, there is noticeable CGI. This time, it’s used to add blood splatters from knife slices and other hits. I really don’t think it adds anything, as we can already see from makeup that they’re bleeding. I hope that this is a trend that goes away.