Kenji Tanigaki already proved he knows action to me because of his stunt choreography work on “Blade II” back in 2002. More than 20 years later, he proves it again.
In the case of “The Furious,” Tanigaki sat in the director’s chair, helming a picture centered on two angry men on a mission. Xie Miao stars as Wang Wei, a mute tradesman who sets off on a mission to rescue his daughter who’s been kidnapped. Though he appears as just an ordinary blue-collar worker, he soon shows he is highly skilled in martial arts.
Navin (Joe Taslim), meanwhile, is a journalist whose wife, another reporter, went missing investigating reports of child trafficking. He’s now following up on what she found, and meets up with Wang. Together, they embark on a mission to stop the syndicate and rescue their loved ones.
“The Furious” is one of those films that’s meant to deliver on precisely what it’s selling. In this case, its martial arts action, and to its credit, the movie provides plenty of it. This movie, if calculated, would probably come out to about 80 percent fight scenes, most of them hand-to-hand when nearby objects aren’t turned into weapons.
The question is, what’s the quality of those fights? Well, in most respects, they’re phenomenal. The choreography on display is astonishing, and well above what’s mostly coming out of Hollywood these days. The amount of moves on display in just parts of a single fight scene is off the charts.
These scenes are well shot, too, ensuring all of the action can be fully viewed by an audience. The editing is also used as a tool to show off more of the fighting, rather than quick cuts like in some films where choreography is limited.
While the majority of the fights are largely entertaining, though, there are some, especially in the latter half of the picture, where the lack of realism starts to become a detriment. Films where fights are grounded, real and raw in showing the effects of the human body are always good. “The Furious” starts off that way, but kind of abandons it as time goes on.
By the final third of the movie, characters are surviving things to a rather absurd degree. To an extent, that’s not the worst thing. In any given martial arts or action flick, your larger-than-life hero or villain is going to be able to survive more than the average Joe. But with that said, it still gets to be a bit much here.
It also has to be noted that the film has quite the paper-thin plot. Now, that was obviously going to be the case in a movie where the fights take center stage. However, it starts to really become noticeable when a movie like this nears the two-hour mark. “The Furious” clocks in at an hour and 54 minutes, stretching its story structure impossibly thin. On top of that, some creative decisions in terms of how things end are somewhat questionable.
The characters at play are equally as thin, though it’s not a huge problem. The archetype of the simple man of many skills on a mission is a solid one for this type of movie, and this flick doubles up on that for twice the impact. A viewer naturally roots for both heroes, hoping they succeed against the legion of baddies. It’s an uncomplicated, effective approach. Ditto for the villains.
“The Furious” has plenty of entertainment and excitement in the set pieces it brings to audiences. This is a classic example of a viewer getting what they paid for. The action is great, and the characters, while not complex, are easy to support. The story is still extremely shallow and some decisions with the narrative don’t entirely sit well. Plus, pushing the runtime out to nearly two hours brings this one down, but it’s still good. 3.4 out of 5.
Photo courtesy Lionsgate Films.
