The Furious may be a generic title, but it’s also the perfect one to describe this movie. A ruthless vigilante action film, it’s the one of the most violent of the genre in recent memory. Not really in terms of blood and gore, but in terms of sheer physical brutality. Directed by Kenji Tanigaki, an action choreographer who worked on (among other things) the excellent Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, it aims to bring back Hong Kong action cinema to no less than its former glory, and that glory moves fast, hits hard, and breaks both things and people. Mostly foregoing visual effects for practical fight scenes that highlight the physical abilities of the actors, it’s an exhilarating, heart-pounding, wince-inducing work of genre cinema that ranks as one of the most fun watches in recent memory. It’s also a thriller for our troubled times, where institutions become corrupted, the powerful are protected from consequences, the most vulnerable are helpless, and desperate men are driven to the brink.
Somewhere in Southeast Asia, Wang Wei, a mute single father, lives with his daughter. One day, his daughter is suddenly kidnapped, the latest victim in a string of missing children taken by a ruthless child-trafficking ring with powerful connections. He goes to the police but they are of no help. In fact, it seems like they’re barely addressing the problem at all. With no other options, he’s forced to go full Liam Neeson to find her. In the process, Wang comes across a journalist named Navin. Navin’s wife was investigating the child trafficking ring but went missing in the process. Navin teams up with Wang to take down the criminals once and for all and track down their respective missing wife and daughter, and Navin turns out to not only be a journalist, but also a kick-ass fighter as well.
The Furious is the kind of movie that hits you like a ton of bricks, then smashes you in the face with the entire wall a few more times for good measure. This isn’t an action movie with VFX-laden spectacles that ensure that nothing happens to anyone that would cause the production company any problems. This is a throwback to the days where Jackie Chan would endanger his life to get the perfect shot, and films ended abruptly because the stars got third-degree burns. (No, really.) Characters get hurt in this movie, and you feel every (well-rehearsed) body blow. It’s also a ton of fun. This is the most entertainment I’ve gotten in the big screen in a long time. While much of the runtime is devoted to the film’s action sequences, it never really wears thin, and I barely felt the runtime.
However, a big reason for why the nonstop fighting never becomes boring is the characters. These are people the audience cares about. A father in danger of losing his only child. A man looking for his wife. Victims of a child-trafficking ring. All of them powerless due to a system that is impotent in the face of powerful interests. While vigilante films have the risk of becoming morally questionable, no matter how satisfying they can be sometimes, at some point these institutions have the chance of failing and/or becoming corrupted, and the only option left is to take things into your own hands no matter the consequences to do what is unquestionably right. Plus, Navin is simply one of the most cathartic characters I’ve seen in a movie in recent memory. In a time where freedom of the press is under attack and reporters face violence just for doing their jobs, an investigative journalist who’s not afraid to not only expose evil, but beat it to a pulp, is worth the ticket price alone for me.
There are some clear flaws with the movie. The biggest one has to be the acting which, when people are talking instead of fighting, is pretty bad. Much of the film is in English, and the performances bring to mind the era of cheaply-dubbed kung-fu movies, and I don’t mean that in a good way. It’s also obvious at times that the story took a backseat to the fight scenes in terms of the film’s overall goals. However, those are small complaints given how much fun I had during the film overall. It’s a must-see on the big screen and with a large audience, and is sure to become a classic for martial arts movie fans in the long run. More importantly, though, is the film’s overall message: good things won’t happen unless good people are willing to do them, even in the face of unspeakable evil. In times like these, that’s the kind of theme I feel like we need more of at the movies. Of course, having said unspeakable evil get the absolute crap kicked out of them doesn’t hurt either.
