4v291o

Watched on Wednesday May 28, 2025.

This movie is goated and that's the quintuple truth, Ruth

(This joke has probably been made like 20 times on this site and I don't give a shit)

Edit: if you wanna see any of this movie's scenes on YouTube, do yourself a service and don't read the comments because more than likely it will be at least 45% racism and at least 85% complete misunderstanding of the movie

Watched this with my buddy, Karl. He thought it was peak. I think it's now my favorite movie

The Raid is so well shot it's insane. You can tell Gareth and his team were just having fun doing whatever they wanted for the filming of the non fight scenes. Plenty of camera movements and placements alongside impeccable building of tension always keeps you engaged even in the non fights. As for the fights... Absolute fucking insanity in the coreography but complete grace in the camera movements. The incredible martial arts coreography of the last 4 fight scenes is unmatched by anything before or since. I've seriously gone frame by frame on these before and I still notice little details in the movements of the actors

The best part for me about The Raid's action (outside of amazing choreography, stuntwork, camera work, and sound design). Is how it shifts throughout the film. This movie starts with realism of the titular raid. The actors went though honest to God police training to make sure their movements and mannerisms were accurate. The "action" is in quick bursts as both Jaka's and Tama's men execute each other stealthily, trying to avoid a major conflict. All this builds to the scene where shit hits the fan and the action goes from tactical and slower to a chaotic shootout. As the shootout ends (with a fucking fridge bomb) the next fight scene goes from gunfighting to melee. Rama dispatches a shit ton of dudes in very quick succession using a batton and a knife. After this, the next fights become martial ART. In the Drug Lab raid scene, you start to notice the low life junkies take much longer to kill as they fight with their hands. The realism of the opening scenes is slowly dropped in favor of the fantastical. This is actually a great thing for this movie, as the martial arts are it's second strong suit outside of powerful tension. This is also represented in the first Mad Dog fight. His rejection of using guns is not only the most badass shit in existence, but also an indicator of the film's thesis. Action is not about realism. It's about "the pulse" and The Raid delivers a pulse that is completely unmatched by anything. The Raid 2 is good too.

Some other things,
Mad Dog and Andi's little feuds are honestly really cute. Their bickering outside of the elevator and Mad Dog's complete lack of hesitance to beat the shit out of Andi shows that they've definitely had beef in the past.

One of the best moments of subtle characterization in this movie (and there are surprisingly quite a few) is when right after 2 rooms and dozens of men are completely obliterated, instead of showing any concern, Tama starts scheming to pay back the costs of damage. This shows him as a cold and calculating villain, who cares about practically nothing exept his apartment building.

Dagu summons a filing cabinet in the Drug Lab scene

I see plenty of people try to write off the entire movie as nothing exept pure well made action but the little details and the survival horror tone make the action even better. I think unfortunately similar action directors such as Timo Trajanto failed to realize this (The Night Comes For Us has amazingly directed fights and all but the experience as a whole falls flat unless you watch it with a crowd because of how stale everything else feels)

Both a freaky ass movie and a freaky ass movie

Watched on Friday May 23, 2025.

Holy shit

This after obliterating my body for a rowing 2K was a visceral experience. Perfect comfort watch

Mifune my goat

Can't explain it in words but Valentina seems like an allegory for school counselors who only make everything worse for their own benefit

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

"aren't you tired of being stupid yet?"
Some of the best first 15 minutes I've seen in a movie. The ending's got one of the most influential action beats in cinema history

I just... Damn

They really used *that* piece of score just for a scene of a dude running around in a graveyard

On rewatch it isn't as good mainly because the humor is mostly from the absurdity and the cgi is horrendous but it's still good. Amazing direction and fight scenes and also some really solid gags

Watched on Friday May 9, 2025.

"I'm gonna The Kill you"
-John Killer

In all seriousness this is an action banger. Gotta watch some more John Woo stuff but this and Hard Boiled cement him as one of the best action directors ever (at least in my mind). every second you start to think the direction is getting a little basic this movie throws the most insane shit at you

Y'all this might beat The Raid 2. The most insane shit I have ever seen

Didn't actually rewatch the movie and it's actually like 2.5-3 stars but I'm really pissed that havoc has a .7 star lower score than this even though havoc is better in almost every way so fuck this movie (the last 30ish minutes are peak the rest is either great or kind of dogass)

Watched on Sunday April 27, 2025.

Not without it's issues and I see most people's problems with it but I personally liked the first half before the insane action kicked in. And of course once that action kicks in god DAMN. Not only is the coreography insane but it also has the Gareth Evans signiture feeling of pure adrenaline. Instead of most movies going for this feel by adding 30 cuts per second Gareth combines 7 of those cuts into one shot so expertly it's insane. The big fights also have so many layers of shit going on that you never slip into that trance of "okay who cares anymore" overall it's definitely flawed but I fuck with it heavily.

Edit: it's 5 stars instead of 3.5 for the sole reason that a 2.9 rating is insane

Bro is not treatsforbeasts

Life changing

Didn't know Kurosawa was capable of making a movie without Toshiro Mifune. This is probably one of the best movies I've ever seen

Amazing cinematography

Watched on Sunday April 13, 2025.

This review may contain spoilers.

Bold move to have the main character fight 3 people wearing the exact same outfit as him with the same helmet that covers 75% of their faces.

Long ass intermission god damn

"I don't understand my own soul" is relatable asf

-Unironic use of the phrase "newsflash"

The fight in the village and the Chicken Jockey fight kinda ate ngl. Rest was okay to dogshit but the whole thing was funni

"Yeah, Tom. Why don't you go be gay somewhere else?"

Died laughing during the ending scene because it reminded me of that one scene with the riddler from the Batman which reminded me of the "does he know?" Shitpost. Also the movie's peak. Like actually transcendent.

Damn good

Watched on Monday March 31, 2025.

I didn't actually watch this today I'm just trying to change the rating to 3.5 and letterboxd decided to say I watched it and won't let me delete the log
Edit: I also can't delete the review for some reason what the fuck is happening

Fun story, 2 weeks ago I had a 3 hour drive for a rowing meet and was looking for movies to watch. I found this on prime and saw it had great reviews so I ed it. I never really got around to watching it though. The next week I decided to check out Yojimbo without knowing it's similaries to this. I thought it was really great. So fast forward to tonight when I have a 3 hour drive home from another rowing meet and decided to check this out. I knew this was inspired by Yojimbo but damn I didn't know it was pretty much gonna be a 1 to 1 recreation. Definitely made some moments weaker when I knew what was gonna happen but it's still a great story. The score, action, and cinematography make this a damn good movie

Ok yeah it's way better on my latest rewatch. Found a lot of meaning in the heavennhell and hungry spider segments. Still have no clue what the hell the intermission and petting zoo are supposed to be about but they still have something beautiful about them. I reasonate heavily with Jhansi

I can't tell if I keep rewatching for the action, editing, cinematography, story, or because I keep thinking of shit to put in my letterboxd reviews. First act's convoluted as hell but damn this balls. A friend I know on discord said Prakoso looks like canny cat and I agree

Watched with a headache so idk if I got the full experience but damn it was good

This review may contain spoilers.

The scene when they kill Joe Pesci is a lot like the opening of The Raid 2

I have no words

If he was alive today Juror 10 probably would own a podcast where he complains about "getting cancelled" or some shit. Also damn themes were theming and that ending was honestly really heart wrenching. Also fuck PlutoTV for putting long ass ad breaks like 7 times in this. You were on thin ice after getting rid of The Raid movies but this is the last straw

Watched on Wednesday March 12, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday March 11, 2025.

Ok I think I'm stupid because I didn't get like half the shit this was telling me but damn it was good

Car

Had to sit on this for a while but on rewatch yeah it's peak

Is the government stupid?
(Watched for English)

The POV you're a vagina shot goes hard

Watched on Monday February 24, 2025.

Last hour goes hard asf

Movies I've watched while on a rowing machine ranked

1. Oldboy
2. The Raid 2
3. The Raid
4. Everything Everywhere All at Once
5. Dune: Part Two
6. Inception
7. Interstellar
8. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
9. Snatch
10. The Hateful Eight

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

List if movies I wanna see while on my rowing machine. Most of these I've already seen but I think would be entertaining enough to take my mind off the pretty long workouts I gotta do pretty often

• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• The Dark Knight
• The Batman
• Oldboy
• Hardcore Henry
• Kung Fu Hustle
• Kingsman: The Secret Service

• Kingsman: The Secret Service
• Stardust
• Layer Cake
• X-Men: First Class
• Kick-Ass
• The King's Man
• Kingsman: The Golden Circle
• Argylle