The Furious Review: One Hell of a Time!
Director Kenji Tanigaki Delivers One of the Most Exhilarating Martial Arts Films in Recent Memory
There is a very specific kind of joy that comes with watching a great martial arts movie. The best ones are so absurd and over-the-top that you forget to be skeptical and just surrender to the movie magic. Director Kenji Tanigaki’s The Furious is one of those movies. It is relentless, visually stunning, and features some of the most outrageous fight sequences you will ever see. If you are a fan of the genre, stop reading and go watch it!
The Furious follows Wang Wei (Xie Miao), a mute tradesman whose world is shattered when his young daughter Rainy is kidnapped by an international child trafficking ring. With the police unwilling to help, Wei has no choice but to wage a one-man war through a criminal underworld to get her back. His unlikely partner in all of this is Navin (Joe Taslim), a journalist with his own desperate agenda: finding his missing wife.
The Fights: Outrageous and Outright Hilarious!
Let’s get right into it — this movie is carried by its action, and what action it is. From the very first sequence, Tanigaki makes it clear that he is not interested in pulling his punches. There is a certain chaos to every fight scene that feels like something that can only really happen in a movie however the fights in The Furious do not feel choreographed at all. A big part of this is the audio mixing, which deserves its own conversation. Like other martial arts movies, the music mixed with the sound of hits being thrown brings pleasure like no other.
Then, you have the random items being thrown around everywhere. Tanigaki has his fighters turning the most obscure objects into projectiles with the kind of accuracy that makes your jaw drop. Whether it’s glass bottles spinning through the air like tomahawks that are caught mid-fight and used as a blade, or a bigger guy creating a giant hammer off a piece of concrete from a wall and a giant sign pole; This is one of those details that might sounds small on paper and hits completely different on screen.
The two leads are everything in this film. Joe Taslim, who many will recognize as Sub-Zero from the Mortal Kombat movie, brings a good guy persona to his role while Xie Mao, known for his role in Fight Against Evil, plays the “bad cop” role here, a person who will not stop at anything to find his daughter. Both actors brought just what they needed to the film to make it a top tier martial arts movie and prove why they should be automatic casting options in the genre. Watching these two work is an absolute privilege.
The Set Pieces: A Film That Never Lets You Breathe
There are individual sequences in this movie that will live in my memory rent free. The fight sequence in the nightclub (that also serves as a UFC event for some reason) is just insane. The camera team deserves serious recognition here —they catch every single piece of action perfectly. It is clear that Tanigaki and the crew are experts in making these kinds of films.
And then there is the freezer room… The damn freezer room! I will not say more than that. This is one of those set designs that make you laugh in shock, because what the heck was that?!
The film’s use of music is equally impressive and can be easily overlooked in overall. Tanigaki moves between a traditional instrumental score and more modern genres of music. One action sequence will have rock music while EDM is blasting in your eye while they’re fighting in the club. It should feel jarring but instead it helps in the movies pacing in all the best ways. It feels like the movie has its own heartbeat and it refuses to let yours slow down.
More Than Just Fists
What catches you off guard — in the best way — is that The Furious actually has a story worth following. It is not just a delivery mechanism for the action. The narrative holds its own weight and gives the fights stakes that make them matter. This is not always a given in the genre, and Tanigaki deserves credit for caring about both halves of the film equally.
The pacing is relentless from the opening frame. This movie does not feel like a movie that runs for almost two hours. Once the fighting starts, you immediately lose track of time until the third act, which is as exhilarating as anything you will see in a theater this year.
A Minor Note
For a film fully invested in non-stop action, the final moments arrive before you feel fully ready for them. The ending does feel a little rushed. It is a small critique in the grand scope of what The Furious achieves, but worth mentioning.
Final Verdict
The Furious is exactly what makes this genre so entertaining to watch. Kenji Tanigaki has made a film that honors the tradition of martial arts cinema while pushing its physical and visual boundaries into something that feels entirely its own. Between the performances of Joe Taslim and Xie Mao, the jaw-dropping choreography, the immaculate sound design, and a visual identity that makes every frame interesting to look at — this is a movie that fires on all cylinders and barely stops to apologize for it. It is not a flawless film. But it is an absolutely thrilling one. Go watch this one in theaters, and tell your friends about it too!