Red Band trailer for The Raid takes no prisoners

The TIFF Midnight Madness screening of Gareth Huw Evans’ Indonesian thriller The Raid kicked ass to hell and back. Andrew Mack at Twitch says it’s “the action film of the year.”

By now you should know the premise of the film. A criminal overlord lives on the top floor of a large apartment building. It is wired to the nines with cameras and speakers. No one moves in this building without him knowing it. He owns everything and everyone inside it. Two-bit criminals take refuge behind its doors. Junkies get their fix in derelict apartments. Nearly everyone inside the building is bought and owned by this overlord. Iko Uwais is Rama, a rookie SWAT team member. One of twenty attempting to infiltrate this fortified complex and snatch the boss. Thing is, they are discovered and whole building turns on them and they have to fight for lives, from floor to floor, room by room. Do they continue with their mission? Or do they just try to get out and survive?

Evans’ direction in The Raid is inventive and dynamic. With his DoP Matt Flannery, they follow the action as well as emphasize it opting for hand held camera work that follows each fist, and foot, and elbow, and head… you get the idea. Clinical editing draws focus to moves and hits. Because the adrenaline level of The Raid is so much higher than that of their previous work Merantau you can forgive the quicker cuts. And it still works because Evans has so much respect for the hard work put in by Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian on the choreography that despite the close quarters combat, moving from room to room and floor to floor, he still manages to pull the camera back far enough to allow us to fully appreciate the scope of action.

There have been a great many duos in the action and martial arts world. Modern masters included John Woo and Chow Yun-fat; Jackie Chan and Edward Tang; Jet Li and either combination of Corey Yeun and Tsui Hark. Leaders of the new school were for a short while Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen, and Prachya Pinkaew and Tony Jaa. With The Raid Evans and Uwais not on confirm they are solid contenders in the genres but clearly the current title holders as well. All challengers are welcome but they best be warned, they’ll be met with a combat boot to the face.