Same…can’t wait!
Yeah i was able to find a place showing Raid 2, its kind of odd its playing at a hick town…I was hoping for pack theater but having good seats is always nice.
Such a good movie.
I’m gonna see it tomorrow, (it’s showing in Houston now) omg omg omg omg omg omg omg
This movie blew my mind. Very violent but not over the top. More like it has its place. The prison fight and the kitchen and club fight were soooo good.
Was it crowded?
So far i got 8 people going with me tonight. One white guy for protection haha, still blows my mind that its playing over there of all places…I wonder if most of the people who is going to watch is going to leave the theater because its subtitled.
Not crowded at all it was me and I ran into some of the local Tekken guys which was cool. I’d say 8 folks in the theater. 2 Whit guys and the rest were black lol. All subtitles. There was one part where the Japanese and Indonesian gangster were speaking English. I was annoyed because it made no sense to all of a sudden speak English. Also I loved how the Japanese gangsters were wanting something to jump off lol.
Also I think I counted 6 or 7 fight scenes before hammer girl and baseball bat man were introduced. So yeah the fight scenes are very dense.
You can tell I was hype.
I was gonna go see it today, but I decided to go tomorrow and force friends to go with me. Can’t contain my hype!
I must have seen a different movie because it was awful.
It’s a story that’s been told 100 times before, the director in one scene tries to be arty farty with close ups and silence, then in the next scene you have some guy having his throat ripped out mid conversation, it was pretentious. They couldn’t find a more varied set of blood splatter sounds either.
The movie is loooong, it’s so poorly paced, shaky cam has been abused in every fight scene, I don’t know why they don’t leave that for post and fake it. Also, every bad guy lines up to get his ass kicked, you can literally see them standing waiting for their cue to jump in! Script lacked any real substance, you also have a bunch of characters introduced in the last 1/3 of the movie. You could tell that the director is talented but it’s obvious that he is still trying to find his way in this medium.
At least the finale lived up to my expectations. My brother described it best, it’s like a pretentious over garnished salad.
Only scenes worth talking about were the two prison fights (at the beginning of the film), the only time that arty direction was perfectly suited. And the final fight in the kitchen, I waited the whole movie for it I’m glad it did not disappoint.
@Furious - Yo lets keep it real, what martial arts movie has a really deep story? I think the way the movie was filmed was a nice change from a lot of the stuff that I have seen as of late. Yeah you could argue that it was pretentious in how he filmed, but honestly it was good quality. I agree that the movie was long as hell though. I wish they would have reigned it in, and the shaky cam got to me a few times, but it wasn’t constant. All in all the movie was leaps and bounds better than the first, and I like how they introduced the new characters. My only gripe about those three was that I would have liked to known their origin You know? The same with Yanyan Ruhian’s character (the dad). Gareth Evans is still new as a director, but to see what he did on I believe its his third film, he has done better than some vets. But like I said before, the movie is kind of dense in certain parts, but no so much so where it is just dragging on (remember Only God Forgives?).
As far as fight scenes, they were dope. I mean iko was beast in, but he was getting handled as well. I felt he put some of the guys over (kitchen fight) instead of how Jaa just bodies everyone. I agree with the Kitchen fight scene though, that shit was really good, and very intense. Honestly you couldn’t tell who would make it out. All in all I enjoyed the movie and will buy it on BR when it drops.
And then again I like some of the artsy fartsy cinematography used. But then that’s just me…
No I’m not expecting a deep story, just be somewhat original, this was basically Internal Affairs meets Casino.
Yeh “that guy” was a total badass I wish we saw more of him (you know if they just redid Internal Affairs into a martial art epic with Iko and this guy it would be the greatest crime drama ever). The movie could have lost a bunch of stuff and still been good. It felt like he was trying to make 2 movies into 1. I didn’t like them introducing new characters so late in the movie, like Hammer girl you find out 2 major details about her, which just makes you want to know more but then she’s killed off.
Honestly I was getting bored with each fight all the enemies were just lining up to have their ass kicked, you could see actors standing in frame waiting for their cue. There were plenty of times where Rama throws 10 techniques on one guy and everyone just stands still and watches. The movie felt so long for me because there was no end in sight, at least with the first movie you understand the objective he needed to get to the top, get the bad guy then get back down to the bottom, you are able to consciously form a time scale in your mind. This movie just felt like there was no real end planned, almost 2hrs in and we still didn’t have any indication where the characters were heading, that’s just poor story telling.
I love artsy movies too, but there has to be a point to it, this felt like a student was doing it because they had just discovered this new technique and wanted to experiment with it. Like I said in my original post, the 2nd prison fight, the one out in the rain and the mud, the artsy cinematography was relevant to the narrative, he could see a plan being set in motion before him, his adrenaline was kicking in, you could feel a real sense of danger as they drew closer and closer, it was brilliant. But then you have scenes like where the kingpin’s son is using the wash basin and you have slow mo, camera zoomed in on the tap so you can see the droplets of cold water on it. WTF was the point of that? It serves no purpose, the guy just took a shit and is washing his hands. The scene shouldn’t even be in the film.
edit: left out not
Raid 2 was dope. I’ll agree that it was long as fuck though and the first half seemed to drag. The kitchen fight is one of the more impressive fights in a long time.
It was much better than Protector 2 and the first raid but not as good as ong bak and protector 1
Agreed 100% and you didn’t feel like this is what he was trying to do? Thats why the film was so long, he wanted to have all the story but still have all the fights.
Eh, I think its just a nice change in the same old formula. I think I enjoyed the shots, just for the fact that they were different. There are too many martial arts films I have seen that just regurgitated the same old thing, and honestly I did not expect this to be any different. I mean Rama (Iko Uwais) was more brutal than the first. But my focus was more so on the other characters (Baseball Bat Man, Hammer Girl and the assassin dude). I agree that there should have been something to at least give us more of an insight as to where these folks came from,but all we know is that they were just there. Either way Gareth Evans did a superb job, for this to be his third film and his first sequel. I wouldn’t expect him to get it right the first time. But regardless of the little things that took away from the movie, there was a lot more good than bad imo.
Awful? Really wow…
Went to the hick town & there was probably only 20 people, that’s including my crew. A family left in the beginning when they saw the subtitles or they might have thought this was Rio 2 cuz they had 8year old with them…
I thought the movie was pretty dope, not as good as the first one in terms of the pacing, intensity, & actually feeling for the characters…I felt Rama took a back seat as the lead as soon as he got out of the prison & focus mostly more on the bad guys which probably was the cause of the pacing or the disconnect. It was like bad guy after bad guy which is cool if they were able to incorporate Rama into it but they didnt.
What Raid 2 improved on compared to the first one is the fight scenes, the hard hits, & the Oh shit moments. There were tons & tons of fights & are actually really well choreograph. That’s why i have a problem w/ someone saying it was awful film, as they obviously put a lot of work into these scenes. This movie set the bar for action scenes in a martial arts movie. We go to watch movies for these scenes & they delivered!
I was going to watch Captain America with the wife today but i really dont feel like watching any other movie right now unless its Raid 2. Cant wait for the Bluray!
If you showed me the movie in parts, e.g in an episodes format I would probably think it looks fantastic. But as it is, the script could have been structured better (like you pointed out the first movie did this right), Bejo (dude with the walking stick) needed to be introduced much earlier in the movie.
It was pretentious because there were scenes like the bathroom scene I described earlier that didn’t need to be seen. You had a 5 minute scene with close ups, slow mo, a funny interaction with the washer boy all meant to lead him to discovering the bug in his wallet, like you couldn’t have explained that in 30seconds without all the fluff? It’s scenes like this that dragged the movie out longer than it needed to.
Maybe it’s me I’ve always been very analytical when it comes to screen combat, particularly how fights are framed and the camera tricks employed. I think you guys are giving the direction and choreography too much praise, it was certainly very impressive at times but (looking past the gore and limb destruction) too many of the group fights ended up just being 1 on 1, you had 10 bad guys in a scene, 1 of them attacks the other 9 just wait in line for Rama to finish his ultra combo (don’t get me wrong, these actors are amazingly talented they made every punch and kick feel so real). Nolan had the exact same problem in the Dark Knight, Batman never had more than one person attack him, and that wasn’t down to any fancy footwork he was surrounded but was never attacked whilst his was attacking/defending the goon in front of him. This movie had the same problem, they got it right in the cubical fight scene, at one point he was fighting 3 people in the tight space and quickly becomes overwhelmed, as soon as I saw that I thought genius they’re making this ultra realistic, even Ucok (kingpin’s son) made a comment about Rama’s clever strategy when they met in the supper hall.
I will say this though, that kitchen fight will go down in history as one of the best screen fights ever captured, it had everything you could want, it was like a violent game of chess, there were nods to classic kung fu movies, and the music was perfect too (wasn’t a distraction just helped build the tension). Even though they were a lot of fun, I really wish they introduced the assassin (Cecep Arif Rahman) earlier in the movie and just got rid of the comedy brother and sister duo.
Track 23. The Showdown
I liked the brother/sister duo. I think they should have been introduced way sooner along with the assassin. Honestly I hope gareth Evans has a series of short films that gives us their origin story. I loved Yayan’s character, mainly because I like his brutal fight style and the fact that he is a dad (like me, lol). My biggest gripe was the length and the shaky cam. Everything else was pretty good though. I also liked how they had the cult leader from VHS 2 in the movie as well (he was the guy running the porn ring). I agree that the kitchen fight scene is up there. It carried that intensity. I wanted to see more with the Japanese gang though. The were wanting somethin to pop off, lol.
Also I found a link if anyone wants it, I’ll pm you the link.