An opening scene that begins with the location card “Somewhere in Southeast Asia” should tell you how interested The Furious is in plot, character, and geography. Let that not let your interest wane; we’re not here for that.
The Furious generated buzz in film festivals like TIFF and the Busan International Film Festival, where it was screened in the Midnight Passion section. Released quietly with no fanfare in theatres in India recently, it took a reminder from the NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast episode titled ‘Great Movies We Missed’ to prompt a rush to BookMyShow to scramble for tickets (I could only get 11:45 pm on a weeknight, next to an audi screening the Brazil-Japan FIFA World Cup match). Turns out: no caffeine was needed.
In this film directed by Japanese filmmaker, stunt choreographer, and stuntman Kenji Tanigaki, the story is nothing to write home about. A child trafficking gang has kidnapped Rainy (Enyou Yang), the daughter of mute Chinese handyman Wang Wei (Miao Xie). Wang, however, is no ordinary handyman; he’s the sort to chase down a truck full of hoodlums in flip flops and almost rescue his daughter minutes after the kidnapping. There’s also an undercover reporter Naslin (Joe Taslim), who’s looking for his wife who went missing while investigating the gang. After an initial misunderstanding and a wonderfully choreographed—albeit short—fight sequence, the two team up. (By the end of the movie, everyone would have fought everyone.)
Now to the important bit. The fight scenes in The Furious are the most satisfying visuals you would have seen in the first half of 2026. The run time of the film is just a series of balletic stunt sequences that prevent you from blinking in the hour and 53 minutes it takes to reach the end.
There’s one sequence set in an ice factory, where frozen blocks housing dead humans are thrown around and smashed to smithereens with great beauty, as wet surfaces provide the glide and the grace. An MMA cage becomes the venue for bodies piled up pyramid style. It’s hard to miss the moving symmetry of a four-way fight (which soon becomes a five-way fight thanks to a goon who keeps popping up like a persistent Hit Me doll). A single wooden pallet becomes the crux of a five-minute staircase-blocking fight. Ladders come in handy in a dozen ways, as do office desks and bicycles; full props for the props. Punches, blades and kicks land, but they’re also evaded with utterly convincing agility (most of the actors here do their own stunts). The gore’s largely restricted to one scene where a suit-clad villain goes feral without warning. Mostly, though, it’s like a Step Up movie but with fights.
The cast is a combination of The Raid alumni and action stars from Beijing, Indonesia, and Japan. Joe Taslim, an Indonesian actor and judo champ, and Yayan Ruhian, the scary henchman with a bow here, worked together in The Raid. Director Tanigaki, according to an interview with Mubi Notebook, was an early practitioner of the Japanese martial art Shorinji Kempo and part of the “Jackie Chan generation”, who grew up on a diet of Chinese martial art movies and action films from the world over. Miao Xie is a former wushu champion who played Jet Li’s son in The New Legend of Shaolin when he was 10.
The who’s-who aside, though, just go watch the hammer-wielding man let loose.
