The Premise
"The Furious" is a 2025 Hong Kong action movie directed by Kenji Tanigaki, the fight choreographer behind the "Rurouni Kenshin" films and a longtime Donnie Yen collaborator. This is his first solo directing gig, and he stacked the deck: Xie Miao (the kid from Jet Li's "My Father Is a Hero," now grown into a legit action lead) plays Wang Wei, a quiet dad whose daughter gets snatched by traffickers. Joe Taslim from "The Raid 2" and "The Night Comes for Us" plays Navin, a journalist looking for his missing wife. The cops are useless or bought. Wei picks up whatever's nearby and starts hitting people with it. Yayan Ruhian and Jeeja Yanin show up. Brian Le too. You know the shape of this movie by minute ten.
The Case For
The fights. Tanigaki has spent decades doing coverage that actually shows you the geography of a room and the weight of a hit, and he cuts loose here. Long takes, real impact, environmental brutality. Chairs, chains, kitchenware, the kitchen itself. Xie Miao moves like someone who's been training since he was seven, because he has. Taslim brings the same silent fury he brought to Mad Dog. Every marquee name is a working martial artist, not a stunt double's employer, which means the camera can sit still and let bodies do the work. If you've been chasing the "Raid" high through a decade of shaky-cam disappointment, this is the one that scratches it.
The Case Against
The script is functional at best and embarrassing at worst. Brian Tallerico at RogerEbert.com called the dialogue "atrocious" and the plot "goofy," which is generous. Characters explain their motivations twice. The English-language performances from a mostly non-native cast land somewhere between wooden and unintentionally funny. The emotional beats between fights are the price of admission, not the reward. If you need a story that hangs together, or a villain who's more than a smirking suit in a warehouse, you'll be checking your phone between set pieces.
Who It's For, Who'll Bounce
For: people who own "The Raid" on physical media, who quote "Ip Man" fight beats, who watched "John Wick: Chapter 4" and thought the staircase should've been longer. If "SPL," "Undisputed III," or "Flash Point" live on your shelf, you already bought a ticket.
Bounce: anyone who watches action movies for the plot. Anyone who found "Nobody" too silly. Anyone who needs the daughter subplot to feel like actual grief instead of a starting pistol. Parents who don't want to hear "she's out there somewhere" said in three different accents.
The Ruling
WORTH IT because Tanigaki delivers the goods where a fight movie has to deliver them. The choreography is generational. Xie Miao's re-emergence at forty-plus is a genuine event. Taslim is doing exactly what you hired Taslim to do. You're not being sold on themes or a message here, so the Lecture Test doesn't apply; this is a movie about a man breaking bones to find his kid, and it commits. What holds it back from GOTTA WATCH is the connective tissue: the writing sags, the drama's paper-thin, and you'll wish someone had spent another month on the script. But the ceiling on fight cinema is high right now, and this clears it. Bones break. You clap. Verdict earned.
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