There's plenty of reasons to be furious about the world we live in today, but The Furious itself isn't one of them. What does upset us about this movie, however, is that we'll never get to watch Kenji Tanigaki's action masterpiece again for the very first time.
That's not to say The Furious doesn't come with rewatch value. We could stare at Xie Miao bludgeoning people with a hammer for days on end, eyes held open with A Clockwork Orange-style clamps to push back the natural rhythms of sleep.
But to experience this zenith of action cinema on first watch is akin to a spiritual awakening, albeit one that tells a slightly more coherent story than your average religion.
The Furious opens with a journalist named Matia (Thai action star Jija Yanin) trying to rescue some kids who are being trafficked in a city we're told is located "somewhere in Southeast Asia". Things don't go to plan though when a bow-wielding psycho (played by The Raid legend Yayan Ruhian) suddenly shows up.
Cut to a few months later when the feisty daughter of a mute handyman named Wang Wei (Miao) is kidnapped off the streets by these same traffickers. It turns out Wei is rather handy with his fists, his feet, and any even slightly pointy object he can get his hands on to use as a weapon.
Still, it's not enough to rescue Rainy (Yang Enyou) who's been snatched away on a truck to god knows where. The police are no help either, so Wei takes it upon himself to investigate.
What to Read Next
The trail soon leads to a fight club where Matia's husband Navin (played by another legend from The Raid, Joe Taslim) is doing some investigating of his own. The pair end up furiously fighting each other before they team up to rescue those they love most. As people say, two heads are better than one, especially when they're used to violently head butt every evil sicko in their path.
And don't get it twisted. The Furious makes it clear very early on that these vile men deserve all the broken bones, ruptured organs and severed limbs that come their way. Yes, even the man-baby built like a brick shithouse (Everything Everywhere All at Once stuntman Brian Le) whose skull might actually be made of concrete.
In direct contrast to typical Hollywood fare, The Furious really makes you feel every bone crunch and pop out of joint in deeply visceral fashion. The fights are very scrappy in that sense, worlds removed from the action you might find in Marvel fare or movies of a fast and furious variety.
Yet the extraordinary feats accomplished here feel superhuman regardless. That's because Tanigaki relies instead on the acrobatic talents of his cast to push the boundaries of what action cinema, and hell, cinema itself is capable of.
Various different martial arts collide with near-orgiastic fury in every fight that somehow tops the one before it. Any other movie would peak with Wei smashing people's heads in from atop a human pyramid of henchmen, but that's just a typical Tuesday for our hero.
Anything goes in The Furious. Chairs, tables, sledgehammers and even bikes are deadly weapons here. At one point, Le even uses another man's body like a broom to sweep his opponent away. Like. A. Broom. And yes, that bike scene is just as absurdly brilliant as you'd expect.
The fight choreography perfected in action franchises like Ong-Bak and of course, The Raid, is somehow perfected even more here with a fluidity that defies belief. Whether it's one against one or one against 50, every move is as sharp as an ice pick, and the same also goes for Tanigaki's camera which twists and turns and tumbles right along with them in crazed long takes.
There's a scene around two thirds in where Wei and his daughter ride through a corridor on their motorbike with Rainy gleefully smashing a crowbar down on everyone they knock to the floor. It was at this point we felt the movie had peaked, only to realise that The Furious had barely gotten started in terms of just how extreme things could get.
It's no exaggeration to suggest that the final thirty minutes of this movie are among the greatest ever committed to celluloid. You will gasp, you will certainly clench your fists and you might even cheer at multiple times throughout as the breathtaking martial arts refuse to let up, even for a second, with delirious mania and blood-soaked precision.
Shout out to lead choreographer Kensuke Sonomura whose eye for action may very well prove the existence of God. Entire governments haven't been organised as well as the five-way fight scene he and Tanigaki coordinate in the movie's climax.
Brutal and cartoonish in equal measure, The Furious knows when to make you wince, when to make you laugh and when to simply stun you into silence. There are moments, however, when you might wish for the movie to go silent too.
While the sound design hits just as it should, the dialogue is less than stellar, and it sure doesn't help that a lot of the English spoken has been clumsily ADR-ed too. Why not just stick with the intriguing mishmash of Mandarin, Thai and Tagalog that's also used throughout?
But honestly, you're never given much time for any of this to really bother you, not when you're being hit over and over again in the face with a constant barrage of bloody, Looney Tunes-style mayhem. The same goes for a few thin plot points too, although we'd argue this couldn't matter less in the grand scheme of things.
All that will bother you by the end is that The Furious had to end at all. Talk of a sequel is already underway, thankfully, although it's hard to imagine Tanigaki topping this. Still, you could say the same for the fight scenes here, each somehow better than the last.
It's a good thing Tanigaki and his team are already planning their next movie, because everyone else in the action film biz should probably give up at this point. Why bother even trying to compete when you're up against a film like The Furious?
But if you do want more movies like this to be made, we suggest you go out of your way to recommend The Furious to friends while it's still playing in cinemas. Because trust us, they're going to be fu...fuming if you don't.
The Furious is now available to watch in select UK cinemas.
Visit our Streaming Guide now to see at a glance where you can view ALL your favourite shows and movies.
The new edition of Living Legends, celebrating the global phenomenon of BTS, is here! Buy this ultimate fan guide in newsagents or online.
After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
