It uses a thin plot touching on the classic Hong Kong action themes of brotherhood and loyalty as an excuse to string together a series of gonzo action set-pieces so ingeniously bloody that one could conceivably classify the film as horror.
By exploiting the raw physical power of the Indonesian martial art called silat and then emptying buckets and buckets of fake blood upon your cast for kicks, filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto has birthed a monster of a movie, as brutal as it is hypnotic.
This cartoonish cavalcade of carnage potently reunites “The Raid” stars Joe Taslim and Iko Uwais as former friends on a corpse-strewn collision course.