Notable Cast: Xie Miao, Joe Taslim, Yang Enyou, Yayan
Ruhian, Jeeja Yanin, Brian Le, Joey Iwanaga
I love martial arts films. Down to the point that I might
call it a core part of my personality. When there’s a new martial arts action
film coming down the pipeline, you can guarantee that I’ll be there in my best
suit, waiting in line to partake. When there’s a new one that starts to garner
a lot of buzz in the film community, I almost feel surprised. It’s not often
that a martial arts movie makes waves, and too often I feel like some of the
best in the genre are tossed off by the greater film community as just low-brow
entertainment at best. Yet, here we are in 2026, and critics and audiences seem
to be, surprisingly, in love with a new martial arts film.
Of course, the film I’m referring to is The Furious,
the latest international martial arts stunner that has found some success
theatrically even in the US. Directed by action choreographer and stuntman
extraordinaire Kenji Tanigaki, The Furious blends classic Hong Kong
action cinema characters and plotting with an international mix of star power
and martial arts stunt powerhouses, and the results are as violent and driven
as one might expect. Its success overall with audiences, particularly in the
West, is because most audiences understand the language it's using - good guys
beating the ever-living shit out of bad guys, and it does it with immense style
and a raucous amount of diversity in its endless fights.
Its base plot is a very familiar one. A man looking for his
kidnapped daughter teams up with a man looking for his missing wife, only to
find themselves facing a criminal system of human trafficking that’s going to
require a lot of punching, kicking, hammering, rolling, dodging, flipping,
stabbing, leaping, bleeding, and sweating to fight their way through. There’s a
bit of classism, corruption, and a smidge of social commentary thrown into the
mix, but it’s mostly there for flavoring rather than the main course. This is a
film that, despite its almost two-hour run time, is not overly concerned with
“plot.” The plot serves the characters, not the other way around. If anything,
if people wanted to be nitpicky, there are a lot of moments where plotting and
the script could have been tightened. However, the plot doesn’t really matter
when the characters work through emotional (and often violent) bursts rather
than logic. It is called The Furious for a reason.
Desperate men fighting for those they love is absolutely the
core of its narrative, and those baseline emotions are what resonate so clearly
in the film. Familial love, loss, and connection drive almost every character
in the film towards their destiny, a path towards destructive conflict. Xie
Miao plays a mute handyman, Wang Wei, whose daughter feels like she’s slipping
away as she gets older and desperately wants to connect with her somewhat
distant father. Joe Taslim plays Navin, a flawed husband looking for his
missing wife who was investigating a child trafficking ring, and is desperate
to find her after he tries to convince her to abandon her fight for
justice.
Even the antagonists of the film are driven by family. A rich businessman, played by a surprisingly evil Joey Iwanaga, is desperate to fit in with his pregnant wife’s rich family and will definitely run a human trafficking ring to earn the money to prove his worth to them. Hell, even an almost unkillable henchman, played by Brian Ye, is driven by his dedication to his father - even through death. It’s this emotional throughline to family connection that really allows the film to feel like its action and violence are justified, because through its strong performances all around, The Furious is about people consumed by desperation and sadness that is pressurized into anger and violence to protect the people they love…even if the cost is their life. It’s exemplified in the simplest way in a moment where a police officer asks Wang Wei, “Who are you, really?” and he answers, in sign language, “I’m just a father.”
What helps sell the emotion and narrative is that The
Furious is absolutely packed to the brim with some of the most talented
people working in action cinema. Its cast is not only some of the most talented
on-screen action stars in terms of performance and the stunts and action
sequences, but they are able to sell the character growth and emotional
storytelling in the fights themselves.
While I was certainly a big fan of the Eye for an Eye
films, currently showing on the Hi-Yah! streaming service and their star, Xie
Miao, as a blind swordsman-bounty hunter, I’m not sure I recognized the sheer
action-hero vibes the star was giving off. He’s absolutely fantastic in those
films, a step above some of his other great work in films like Ip Man: The
Awakening or Hunt the Wicked, but it was seeing just how fast this
motherfucker could run in flip-flops that might have been the moment I was
like, “Yo, this guy is an action icon already.” If Tom Cruise saw this film in
theaters, I’m sure he gasped and choked on his popcorn. And that’s only one
moment of sheer onscreen brilliance that Xie Miao is bringing to this film, and
he is absolutely the shining star of the film. He brings a heartfelt honesty to
the role in the film, all without dialogue since his character is mute, and
whether he’s sharing a moment with the character's daughter at a hair salon or
beating a pile of thugs into a human pyramid with a hammer, he’s selling his
character with vigor.
Xie Miao’s working-man persona is balanced well with Joe Taslim as Navin. Taslim, who rose to international recognition as the squad leader in The Raid, has often played villains in most newer films rather than heroes. He’s Sub-Zero in the Mortal Kombat reboots, a wildly misused bad guy henchman in Fast & Furious 6, and even when he’s the protagonist, like in the brilliant The Night Comes For Us, he’s most certainly the bad guy who just happened to have a change of heart. In The Furious, he still gives off the vibe that he could easily snap at any given moment, and it serves the film well, particularly as his fighting style in the film is far scrappier than the wushu-trained swiftness of Xie Miao. When he eventually gets to face off against the character who knows what happened to his wife, played by a well-used cameo of Jeeja Yanin, which also happens to be a rematch against Yayan Ruhian after they sparred against one another in The Raid, you want to see him simply will his way to a win against a stronger opponent.
As mentioned, Brian Le shows up in a shockingly prevalent
role as a henchman bound to use his strength to do his father’s bidding, Yayan
Ruhian gets to shine once again as a villain well versed in crippling people
with a bow, and Joey Iwanaga gets a surprisingly evil turn as the film’s big
bad with a penchant for kicking and using his trained dancer athleticism to
maximum effect against his opponents. In the most brilliant move of the movie, The
Furious then takes these five characters and pits them all against one
another in the final fight. Which, for the record, might be one of the most
intricately choreographed fights in action history - and that’s saying
something for a fight that lasts over 20 minutes.
And, of course, we can’t just ignore the fact that The
Furious is essentially two hours of pure action. Director Kenji Tanigaki
has certainly made a name for himself over the last few decades as one of the
most reliable stunt coordinators and fight choreographers. Cutting his teeth in
Hong Kong, working closely with Donnie Yen during his meteoric rise in the mid-00s
through today, and then perhaps really finding his own when he blended samurai
and wuxia sword fighting together for the incredible Rurouni Kenshin
films, makes him one of the biggest names in action. Don’t believe me? Just
watch Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.
Although this isn’t his first time working as a director- yes, he did make the Donnie Yen-starring remake of Enter the Fat Dragon, which was his biggest film prior to this- this is absolutely his crown jewel. Balancing 1980s Hong Kong action grittiness with the spectacle of watching people move through space and clash against one another that almost bleeds into the fantastical, he nails the tone of the film. The action is often extraordinarily violent, where the viewer can feel the ripples of every hit, the wetness of every slice, and the emotion of every time our heroes have to rise again, or the lunacy of seeing just how many punks and bad guys come pouring out of doors or hallways. The final fight is a wild ride of willpower energizing bodies that should be dead, just from sheer exhaustion, and action fans will feast on it. Each character has their own distinct style of fighting, and it makes every fight sequence its own distinct clash.
If that wasn’t enough, Tanigaki brings in stuntman Kensuke
Sonomura to work on this film. Most people may not know this guy, but he’s one
of the biggest up-and-coming names in the martial arts and action film genre.
This is his biggest film to date, and it's a collaboration made in heaven. His
work as a stunt coordinator/choreographer on the Baby Assassin films
(see my review for the widely underrated and incredible Baby Assassins 3
HERE) is incredible, and he’s becoming quite the director himself (both Ghost
Killer and Bad City deserve bigger audiences), so his inclusion in The
Furious should absolutely be noted.
For the most part, it’s exciting to see an action film like The
Furious garner so much positive word of mouth and reactions from around the
world. Martial arts movie fans probably knew it was going to be a great film
just by the sheer talent included, but seeing such a positive response from
most cinephiles is almost heartwarming. The Furious is a love letter to
decades of Asian action cinema, but it’s built in a way that feels refreshingly
heartfelt and honest.
It’s a film built on familiar foundations and crafted by
hand by incredibly skilled people who love the work they do. While many may not
realize just how impressive the action sequences are from a choreography
standpoint in design and execution, or realize why the star power of the film
works so well with its chemistry, they can feel it… and that’s
incredible.
What audiences and critics are responding to is not some kind of fresh approach to the material or some unexpected gimmick. Sure, the film is brimming with some of the best martial arts action of the last decade and powered by the incredible performances from its cast to power its narrative about love and loss, but they are responding to the love and honesty about the craft of making a martial arts movie that The Furious is bringing to the table.
And for a movie about human trafficking, loss, and people
dismantled to the point where the only way forward is through violence against
those who steal the things they love most, it’s pretty impressive that it’s the
love in it that shines the brightest. Whether it's a character grasping for his
wedding ring with his last ounce of strength, a police officer who disobeys her
superior to protect children at all costs, a journalist willing to die for
truth, or even a film director pouring out his admiration for a genre like
‘martial arts films’ that is often disregarded by the overarching film
community as ‘low brow’ entertainment - The Furious found its love. And
I’m glad others can see it too.
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