After Rama unleashed his rage in the apartment full with goons on the first film (The Raid : Redemption). Now, he's back to unleashed his Pencak Silat fighting style again in The Raid 2 : Berandal (Thugs in English). With bigger budget this time (4 million USD) than the last film (1 million USD), the director Gareth Evans has the opportunity to show more of this beautiful yet violent martial arts to the next level. This time Rama are out from the Tama's hell apartment and goes straight to an anti-corruption task force that was lead by a man named Bunawar. When Rama meet him in a secret location, someting when wrong when Bunawar's man executed Wahyu (character from the first film) that are supposed to brought him there to be arrested, not killed.
Rama was really shocked by that incident. Bunawar asked Rama not to be shocked. Instead, he asked Rama to accepted his dangerous mission that will put Rama's life in danger (if he not doing it, his family will be killed). To expose police commissioner Reza's backroom dealings with the Bangun and Goto gangs. At first, Rama refused to accepted that mission, but after he finds out his brother, Andi was killed by the hands of Bejo, a stand-alone mob. Rama have no choice but to accepted the mission, to revenge his dead brother and to protect his family from mobs and corrupted cops. His undercover mission will make Rama journey into the underworld most darkest, deepest and dangerous city of Jakarta.
It's like a Godfather meet with Ong-Bak meet with undercover cop movies. Then, The Raid 2 was born. This time the film locations is more wider than the first one. You will travel throughout dangerous places in the city of Jakarta. It has a combination between modern and classic. The way they dressed up like a really high class mob family. The way they talked (Indonesian, Japanese and English). The acting are fine for me, Iko Uwais, Arifin Putra, Julie Estelle, Yayan Ruhian, Oka Antara and other actors did a pretty good job. Bejo that way played by Alex Abbad are really a calm and simple villian but yet still dangerous that he can set a fire into Bangun and Goto family to fight against each other (with help of Bangun's son Uco) and also infected Uco's mind to betrayal his own father because he wants to steal his father's power, honor, respect and insignia.
One thing I liked about this film was the camera movement. The camera movement was so outstanding especially from the car chase scene. The scene were Rama fight in the car was really incredible. Personally, I liked the scene from prison fight, car chase, Baseball Bat Man dan Hammer Girl scene and also kitchen fight. The kitchen fight was awesome, the camera movement were move steady and keep the fight in continuous shot, which is the way I liked because I don't want to watch a fight scene that was change too much shot from a different angle because I want to see the actor fight continuously on the same angle, just like you watched a live fight show with your own eyes. The car chase are also one of my favorite scene, Eka with his automatic pistol was really awesome, he shot a motorcyclist's face many times!!! I really didn't know that from one scene where a camera from outside came into Eka's car and after a few seconds, that camera came back outside from Eka's car with a different angle. It has been revealed that a seat next to Eka is a cameraman impersonated as a car seat. Which I would say nice.
The soundtrack in this film was great, it creates a feeling of dangerous and mystery. The soundtrack music was created by Fajar Yuskemal, Aria Prayogi and Joseph Trapanese. The choreography fight was outstanding, violent and brutal. I will not give a complain. Just shut my mouth. There was not much dialog in this movie which is the way I liked it. Less talk, more fight. The complain that I would like to say was the duration of this movie. It was a little bit long (2 hours). There are some scene that doesn't important and need to be cut, just let the fight scene duration longer like the first movie. The first movie I liked because it packed with a lot of action from gun fights to martial arts fights and less talk (tuned down the drama). Because hey! It's about Silat and also Jakarta's mobs. About the snow fall in Jakarta, let's just be say that it was a director imagination to created his own Jakarta's world. And also isn't Rama was a Muslim in the first movie because in this second one, he's religion was different from the first film when I saw that one scene he looked to the picture of his dead brother.
So let's concluded all of this point. Personally, I loved the movie because of Silat. I rarely to see some movie about Silat. I always saw a movie about Kung Fu, Muay Thai and other martial arts. But, when I saw this movie, I said "Finally, someone can made a Silat movie." I would not recommended this film to an underage kids because this is a really gory, violent and brutal movie. This is not some Karate Kid family movie, this is a serious and dark movie. Can't wait for The Raid 3 (2 hours before The Raid 2 finished).
THE RAID 2 : BERANDAL : 8/10
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