the raid 2

[jenkins]

Immediately following the events of the original, The Raid 2 tracks Officer Rama as he is pressured to join an anti-corruption task force to guarantee protection for his wife and child. His mission is to get close to a new mob boss, Bangun, by befriending his incarcerated son, Uco. Rama must hunt for information linking Bangun with corruption in the Jakarta Police Department while pursuing a dangerous and personal vendetta that threatens to consume him and bring his mission-and the organized crime syndicate-down around him.

Director: Gareth Evans
Writer: Gareth Evans
Release Date: March 28, 2014 (limited)

[Lottery]

First one was awesome, I wanna see more of that.

[Lottery]

Getting some crazy positive responses at Sundance.

[Mel]

Some highlights: challenges of making sequel, taking more character driven approach, having choreography for the sequel before shooting first part, inspirations coming from other films, differences between industry in Jakarta and LA.

[jenkins]

tomorrow btw. just realized. this and noah -- i'm loving 2014's movies. loving it. ba da bap ba ba. loving it

[Mel]

Looking nuts.

[jenkins]

brutal. bananas. please no one fight me like from this movie. also, a great dance bar shot and a joke about anal sex with a homeless person. better to see these things. the audience made emotional noises, and maybe bring a "keep calm" book in your pocket

[Kellen]

Got to see this last night.  HOLY SHIT!  This pretty much takes everything awesome about the first one and just ratchets it up x100.  I wonder if the deaf assassin with the hammers was some kind of nod to Old Boy.  I know this would be a long shot but if they ever did a Deadpool film I think it would be right up Gareth Evans alley.

I really hope the remake of this just keeps getting delayed and eventually dropped.

[Mel]

It was OK. It is weird to say that film is too long, but it was for me. 50 minutes difference compared to "Redemption" was enough for me to concentrate on shaky cam. Instead of enjoining some of the best fights at the end, I was bothered by camera acting like boat on rough sea. At about ~2 hours mark I was just ready to give up for this specific reason.

[max from fearless]

This was way too long for me. The fights in the last section of the film were great, because they felt evenly matched (with higher stakes), whereas a lot of the earlier fights/set pieces felt too one way, way too long and way too dependent on bone crunching sound design and a lot of shaky camera. I also felt that the widescreen was a problem. A lot of the scenes at the beginning were wide on a dolly/push in, wide on a dolly/push in and this got very boring very quickly. Overall this film reminded me a lot of the recent Old Boy remake and Only God Forgives: slightly soulless, over designed and very exhausting. But the last section was tremendous. Especially the fight in the kitchen with the guy who keeps smiling and egging Iko on throughout and just the way they started the fight, getting in position, MAGIC!!!

[pete]

yeah, the only set pieces that stood out for me were the car chase and the last fight. every other fight looks exactly the same, with the same exact moves from every character (even the old man). I still think Gareth Evans is way better at setting things up than actual execution. The build up to each fight and each character is awesome, but as soon as they got to fighting, everyone moves like a stunt man. I think he's found a very dedicated and serious crew that'll kill themselves for anything, but he shoots his fights as if he's got a Jackie Chan or a Yuen WoPing or a Tony Jaa or a Donnie Yen, but unfortunately they just don't have that type of charisma.