The Raid 2: DVD Review
The Movie:
Following immediately after the events of THE RAID, Rama (Iko Uwais) is forced to reinvent himself as an undercover cop in order to provide protection for his wife and child. Working for the anti-corruption taskforce led by the one person he can trust, Bunawar, he is given a mission to engage himself as an enforcer for a local mob boss, Bangun. Finding a way in through Bangun’s son Uco, Rama must hunt for information linking Bangun with police force corruption. All the while, he harbors a dangerous and personal vendetta for revenge and justice that threatens to consume him – and bring both this mission and the organized crime syndicates crashing down.
The Raid: Redemption was a film like no other and gave its audience a non-stop thrill ride of action. The Raid 2 picks up exactly where the first one left off and I liked that about this one. A lot of times you have a sequel that will skip an amount of time in order to start a new story but this had a storyline that made quite a bit of sense to move forward with. The action was so good and intense that it had me “Ooooh-ing” the entire time. With the fight sequences as elaborate as they are it’s kind of hard not to react that way. Especially when some of the scenes are so over the top and fast paced like the prison fights in the beginning. With the unforgiving, crazy action there also comes lots of blood and gore. The film makes no apologies for it and I think is the main attraction that compliments the film perfectly. I think that the original is still a slightly bit superior than the sequel but it’s still very much an enjoyable film that expands greatly on the story. The best thing about it is that it’s so easy to follow that you don’t even necessarily had to have watched the first one to get what’s going on. If you’re looking for a fantastic martial arts film with an interesting story then do yourself a favor and pick up The Raid 2.
Special Features:
Q&A with Gareth Huw Evans, Iko Uwais & Joe Trapane – Pretty self explanatory. The group gives insight on the film and how it’s bigger than it predecessor.
The Next Chapter: Shooting a Sequel – Your basic Making Of feature that takes you on set of the film and shows what went into creating such phenomenal action movie.
