One of the most important feature of any action movie is the crescendo. Like most genre films, or any films for that matter, building up at the correct pace is a key part of keeping audiences engaged. Whether it’s horror, sci-fi, or a heart pounding South Asian kung fu movie, building upon what we’ve already seen is of utmost importance. It’s something that the new Kenji Tanigaki film ‘The Furious’ masters flawlessly as fight sequence after fight sequence breaks out across its 113 minute runtime.

There’s a few things that make The Furious stand out from other martial arts films, outside the ridiculous level of skill from its stunt performers. It smartly has an incredibly straight forward plot, important to set stakes and ideal to keep them barebones in something like this. A key way it manages this build up is by keeping the violence largely toned down for the first half of the movie, until finally it explodes into a vicious blood bath. It also has a mix of some subtitle alongside English dubs that give it an especially classic feel. It doesn’t always work and I probably would’ve preferred all subtitles, but the sound of a stiff dub is reminiscent of an old Kaiju movie you’d run into on the Sci-Fi channel while channel surfing. Not without it’s own kind of nostalgia.

The movie opens with a title card that reads “Somewhere in Southeast Asia” determined to not set in a specific country. We are introduced to Wang Wei (Xie Miao), a mute Chinese handyman, and his daughter Rainy (Yang Enyou). There are children being kidnapped throughout the city, and coming home from a job a gang of thugs kidnap Rainy. Xie Miao is of course, an incredibly skilled martial artist who will stop at nothing to get her back. Along the way he runs into Navin (Joe Taslim) who’s reporter wife has gone missing in her search for these missing children. His wife Matia (JeeJa Yanin) gets a little prologue scene where she gets to do some of her own action stunt work, although if I was going to lodge a complaint it would’ve been nice to see more female stunt work in the film at large. She’s very good in her sequence, but it’s not terribly long and there’s not much else for any female characters to do. A shame especially after seeing Hammer Girl in The Raid 2 absolutely steal her sequence.

The stunts are as exciting as you might expect, with Wang and Navin facing off against hordes of child traffickers in a “Sound of Freedom but good and more accurate” kind of way. My favorite performer was HD (Brian Le) who’s a huge enforcer for the evil gang. But even as big as he the speed at which he moves his body is astonishing. He’ll charge at the heroes like a dog running on all fours and spring up to punch at them all in one swift motion.

While it’s not quite as impressive as the other South Asia action thrillers that we’ve been treated to over the past decade and a half, The Furious is still worth your time if you’re hankering for that blood pumping all gas no brakes that The Raid and Raid 2 brought into our lives.

4/5