by Hudson Moura
Kenji Tanigaki’s The Furious is a deliberately old-style kung fu action film that embraces the pleasures of the genre with little hesitation. It recalls the kinds of films that made martial arts cinema such a sensation in the 1970s: lean on plot, rich in physical confrontation, punctuated by comic touches, and driven above all by the choreography of combat. In that sense, the film feels like a throwback to the tradition that Quentin Tarantino has so openly admired and reworked in Kill Bill. From its opening sequence, The Furious makes its priorities clear: kung-fu action is not an accessory here but the very essence of the film, the force that defines its rhythm, tone, and identity. The action sequences are immensely entertaining, driven by fast-paced editing that slightly accelerates the characters’ movements, heightening the action while giving it a comic, almost cartoonish quality.
Set in an unnamed Southeast Asian country, the story revolves around a particularly cruel and bloody wave of child kidnappings, as a small group of fighters and truth-seekers struggles to bring justice in a world marked by violence and impunity. At the centre is Wang Wei, played by Chinese actor Miao Xie, a mute father whose mystery comes not only from his silence but from his formidable martial-arts skill and his relentless search for his kidnapped daughter. Alongside him is Navin, played by Indonesian actor Joe Taslim, a human-rights journalist and extraordinary fighter trying to find his wife, the journalist Matia, played by Thai martial artist and actress Jeeja Yanin, who had been denouncing these child abductions. The setup gives the film a humanitarian dimension that runs through the action, even if the emotional stakes are most often expressed through combat rather than through dialogue or psychological depth.
One of the film’s pleasures lies in its gallery of villains and henchmen, each with a sharply defined skill set and persona. This is one of the clearest ways in which the film evokes older kung fu traditions, while also recalling something of the flamboyant logic of James Bond adversaries. Among them, Tak, played by Indonesian actor Yayan Ruhian, stands out as a lethal assassin specializing in archery, dressed in sportswear that gives him a memorable and slightly eccentric visual presence. Then there is HD, played by American-Vietnamese martial artist Brian Le, who moves with an almost animal force, like an indestructible bulldog-monkey hybrid. And Pak Lung, played by Japanese-American martial artist and dancer Joey Iwanaga, is equally distinctive, with his disco-inflected 1970s styling and imposing martial presence. These figures help give the film texture and variety, ensuring that the action never becomes entirely repetitive.
This is where The Furious is at its strongest. The action scenes are clearly conceived as the film’s main attraction, and Tanigaki, with his background as stuntman and fight coordinator, knows exactly how to stage them for maximum impact. The combat is energetic, legible, and often inventive, and the film understands that physical style is part of characterization. Each fighter moves differently, and that difference gives the action a layered quality. Even when the broader story remains schematic, the confrontations themselves have enough shape and personality to keep the film entertaining.
At the same time, this commitment to old-school genre pleasures also creates some limitations. The film’s narrative seems mostly designed as a framework for successive encounters, which means that character development and emotional complexity are not explored as deeply as they might have been. The humanitarian touches are present, but they do not always acquire the full dramatic weight the subject matter could support. A story involving kidnapped children, state weakness, and journalistic resistance has the potential for greater moral and emotional intensity than the film appears willing to pursue. Instead, it often prefers momentum over depth, sensation over reflection.
Even so, The Furious remains an effective and enjoyable action film precisely because it knows what kind of cinema it wants to be. It is not trying to reinvent the genre, but to reactivate its classical energies: the lone avenger, the special-skills villain ensemble, the escalating combat structure, the mixture of cruelty and righteousness, and the satisfaction of a body pushed to its limits in the name of justice. Its weaknesses are real—especially in the thinness of the story and the relative simplicity of its emotional register—but its sense of style, pace, and physical excitement carries it a long way.
Rating: 4/5