The Raid 2: Berandal (2014)

[Secret Executioner]

You won't beat my record, I saw it 4 times!

What if I do ?

Someone on here actually saw it 8 times IIRC.

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

What if I do ?

Someone on here actually saw it 8 times IIRC.

8 times, Dammit!!! Who beat me?

[Secret Executioner]

8 times, Dammit!!! Who beat me?

Can't find it anymore, but I'm pretty sure someone saw it way more than 4 times - while browsing the thread, I saw OldPangYau saw it 4 times as well so I guess you aren't the only one that saw it a lot.

While browsing through the thread, I also found your comment on the porn actress with the strapon seen during the porn factory scene. And yeah, it jumped to my eyes too. Amazingly, she's the second most memorable female character after Hammer Girl while she barely has a minute of screen time.

Speaking of that scene, I think you could tell the kinds of porn they made by the stylized pictures they had - anyone noticed that when the camera pans over the computers (talking of the boxes, not the computer screens) ?

[sifu iron perm]

it was me who saw it 8 times..thrice for me solo and the rest with different company..i went buckwild on that shit.

[ToryK]

My theory on The Raid 3 is that it's going to be Rama-less, and it'll follow the Goto family's attempt at starting over elsewhere. Or maybe a war with dirty cops. But definitely Goto-centric. I'm thinking a Yakuza action-thriller set in Tokyo, maybe?

And I think the conversation at the end goes something like:

"Whoa, what happened here?"

"I f***ed up a lot of people."

"All of 'em?"

"All of 'em."

"What about Uco? You f*** him up too?"

"Yeah, f***ed him up to death."

"Wow...want a job?"

"No...I'm done."

[One Armed Boxer]

My theory on The Raid 3 is that it's going to be Rama-less, and it'll follow the Goto family's attempt at starting over elsewhere. Or maybe a war with dirty cops. But definitely Goto-centric. I'm thinking a Yakuza action-thriller set in Tokyo, maybe

That'd be an interesting direction to take it in, but I highly doubt it would go that way. I think for most people, including myself, Rama is 'The Raid' movies, so having a third installment without him would be the equivalent of it being 25 years ago and announcing a third 'Police Story' movie which wasn't going to feature Jackie Chan.

Iko Uwais has become a credible action star within the genre, so not to capitalize on that for a third installment just wouldn't make any sense. Plus, Scott Adkins has already expressed his interest to be in number three, so here's hoping for an Adkins vs Uwais face off!

[Secret Executioner]

That'd be an interesting direction to take it in, but I highly doubt it would go that way. I think for most people, including myself, Rama is 'The Raid' movies, so having a third installment without him would be the equivalent of it being 25 years ago and announcing a third 'Police Story' movie which wasn't going to feature Jackie Chan.

Iko Uwais has become a credible action star within the genre, so not to capitalize on that for a third installment just wouldn't make any sense. Plus, Scott Adkins has already expressed his interest to be in the third installment, so here's hoping for an Adkins vs Uwais face off!

Entirely agreed with your point on Rama - plus, he would be pretty much the only part keeping all 3 movies together.

Boy, Adkins and Iko Uwais in the same film sounds great. Now Gareth Evans just has to find a way to squeeze in Adkins.

[KUNG FU BOB]

So today my son tells me he re-watched THE RAID 2, sharing it with his Grandpop, Uncle, and Mom. Grandpop's priceless reaction? He said "That was a great movie except for the fighting."!!! Too OTT and unrealistic for him. He watched it with a "Why are they attacking him one at a time? Why doesn't anyone just shoot him?" frame of mind.

I think the conversation at the end goes something like:

"Whoa, what happened here?"

"I f***ed up a lot of people."

"All of 'em?"

"All of 'em."

"What about Uco? You f*** him up too?"

"Yeah, f***ed him up to death."

"Wow...want a job?"

"No...I'm done."

Very funny, and most likely pretty accurate.

That'd be an interesting direction to take it in, but I highly doubt it would go that way. I think for most people, including myself, Rama is 'The Raid' movies, so having a third installment without him would be the equivalent of it being 25 years ago and announcing a third 'Police Story' movie which wasn't going to feature Jackie Chan.

Agreed. I never have a problem pulling a good yakuza film off the shelf. But how many films are there really like THE RAID 1 & 2? More like those please.

Iko Uwais has become a credible action star within the genre, so not to capitalize on that for a third installment just wouldn't make any sense. Plus, Scott Adkins has already expressed his interest to be in number three, so here's hoping for an Adkins vs Uwais face off!

Entirely agreed with your point on Rama - plus, he would be pretty much the only part keeping all 3 movies together.

Boy, Adkins and Iko Uwais in the same film sounds great. Now Gareth Evans just has to find a way to squeeze in Adkins.

If they made Scott a character that has "heard the stories of this incredible fighter" and is searching for a worthy opponent, weaved in and out of the story of Rama's further entanglement with the gangs... Maybe he could even be a disgraced INTERPOL agent or something... got too fired up over injustice and "sentenced" a few scumbags with his fists and feet of fury... Throughout the course of the film, while Scott is trying to find Rama he has to defend himself against individuals that don't appreciate him asking questions... Seeing Iko and Scott's very different styles going up against each other could be epic- all hand-to-hand- like in the old school this style vs that style tradition. Gareth, if you read this and dig it... let's get er done together brother!

[ToryK]

I know it's out there, but my theory comes from Evans saying the third one would be a departure from the first two, but that there would be some connective tissue with the second. He also talks about it having to deal with a conversation towards the end of the movie and I remember him talking about how he hopes the fans will stick around and roll with the next one, considering the aforementioned departure from the first two. But as it is with everything we internet geeks come up with, it's just guesswork.

[Chinatown Kid]

I liked the fights in the first film better because they were more exciting and suited my tastes more aesthetically because of the wide movments of the kicks and punches(Mad Dog vs the two cops was my favorite)as well as the weapon combat. The tight and compact moves of the sequel just wasn't as visually stimulating and exciting to me and the gore was overdone to the point of a horror movie. But it was still a great movie featuring top choreography of realistic combat. It's just in a persons preferences and what they find exciting, nobody's right or wrong for what they prefer. Being a TKD stylist I love to see a lot of kicks from all levels thrown in with the rest of whatever styles and techniques are being used.

[Secret Executioner]

Fuck that movie theater I saw it at. Not only you get to sit through 20 minutes of commercials and (lame) trailers, but they pretty much already pulled it off. Only late nite screenings now, even though The Raid 2 was elected best movie of the week on a cinema website... Fucktards.

[One Armed Boxer]

Fuck that movie theater I saw it at. Not only you get to sit through 20 minutes of commercials and (lame) trailers, but they pretty much already pulled it off. Only late nite screenings now, even though The Raid 2 was elected best movie of the week on a cinema website... Fucktards.

Hey GHW, 20 minutes is a lot of trailers! But you forgot one important point to mention....what did you think of the movie?

I find it really interesting to watch how these theads shape up once a movie is released, purely because you see the same trends occuring. 'Special ID' came out, and literally every person who saw it in the first month give or take one or two pretty much hated it. Then, months later when it hit DVD and everyone who hadn't seen it invariably went in with the lowest expectation possible, all of the later posts in the thread express how it was nowhere near as bad as everyone was initially making out.

With 'The Raid 2' it's the opposite, with everyone loving it, and now in the most recent posts after all of the praise and hype, several people who are just watching it for the first time all have the opinion that it's not as good as everyone was making it out to be.

What's the message? Well, maybe how good a movie really is can only be judged a while after it's come out.

For me though, all of the recent comments about a real martial arts movie not needing the excessive gore that's found in 'The Raid 2', while I'd agree with this, I don't believe it's meant to be viewed as just a 'martial arts movie'. If any comparison must be made, I'd put 'The Raid 2' closer to the likes of 'Outrage' & 'The New World' than say any of Donnie Yen's modern day HK movies, and for me the gore was perfectly in context with the tone of the story. But hey, that's just my 2 cents.

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

Hey GHW, 20 minutes is a lot of trailers! But you forgot one important point to mention....what did you think of the movie?

I find it really interesting to watch how these theads shape up once a movie is released, purely because you see the same trends occuring. 'Special ID' came out, and literally every person who saw it in the first month give or take one or two pretty much hated it. Then, months later when it hit DVD and everyone who hadn't seen it invariably went in with the lowest expectation possible, all of the later posts in the thread express how it was nowhere near as bad as everyone was initially making out.

With 'The Raid 2' it's the opposite, with everyone loving it, and now in the most recent posts after all of the praise and hype, several people who are just watching it for the first time all have the opinion that it's not as good as everyone was making it out to be.

What's the message? Well, maybe how good a movie really is can only be judged a while after it's come out.

For me though, all of the recent comments about a real martial arts movie not needing the excessive gore that's found in 'The Raid 2', while I'd agree with this, I don't believe it's meant to be viewed as just a 'martial arts movie'. If any comparison must be made, I'd put 'The Raid 2' closer to the likes of 'Outrage' & 'The New World' than say any of Donnie Yen's modern day HK movies, and for me the gore was perfectly in context with the tone of the story. But hey, that's just my 2 cents.

Great post man. I believe if you watch a movie before the hype hits, usually the positives come out first. Later down the line once all the praise has made its mark, you will get the so/so or not so great reviews coming out of the wood work. Then you have the cult fans who after several years of its release will praise the film again and try to revamp its cult status into relevance. I'm guessing it's like that with every movie but even before or after the hype, my views would still be the same because I saw it in theaters and it kicked my ass, regardless of hype or not.

[Secret Executioner]

Hey GHW, 20 minutes is a lot of trailers! But you forgot one important point to mention....what did you think of the movie?

Go back a few pages and you'll see this:

FINALLY saw The Raid 2 today. And it's damn good, sorry people who are still in search of a negative review or of slightly critical approach.

More seriously, it's indeed a very solid flick. By comparison with the other 2 great movies I've seen this year, it's way superior to Godzilla (which actually really dropped and I don't find myself so eager to get it on DVD) and slightly better than Captain America: The Winter Soldier (not one I'd buy on DVD either, mainly because I saw it out of curiosity more than anything else). So what did I enjoy in The Raid 2 ?

- the prison riot in the mud: people in the audience actually gasped when Rama (I think it was him) breaks another prisoner's leg. I'd rank this as one of the most brutal fights in the movie, essentially based on the fact that you don't get OTT fighting or gore - just a very realistic brawl.

- Baseball bat man and hammer girl: I said they were kinda comic book characters, that's true, but some awesome ones - BBM is so baseball-based that he could be a henchman for DC Comics supervillain Sportsmaster.

- the car chase: people have complained about it, why ? It's tense, spectacular, has great stunts. Perhaps Rama fighting off the henchmen in the car may seem a bit weird - sounded a bit off to me and I question the continuity here as there doesn't seem to be that much space in that car.

- the kitchen fight: brutal and very bloody, the henchman Rama fight is basically his match in hand-to-hand combat and it makes for one great scene - the edit with a tune from Man Of Steel instead of the original score is better because of the music though.

People have said the movie grew more and more brutal as it advanced. Personally, I felt the most brutal part was the prison brawl in the mud - it wasn't too gory (the death of the machete killer - a character I'd have enjoyed seeing more cause he's the only one with Rama that seemed rounded - could have been much more emotional if gallons of blood didn't spill out of his neck after his death) nor too OTT (I nearly burst into laughter when I saw Baseball bat man use balls along with his bat - cool concept, but WTF ?!)

I didn't feel the movie dragged or anything, but as far as criticism/negative comments go, I'd only point out some OTT gore at points and a certain lack of character development outside of Rama and the machete killer (the others are either clichees or too undevelopped). While there is some shaky cam here and there, there isn't enough to annoy me. Besides, it was in action or chase scenes, which seems kinda normal - would have been much worse had it been in exposition scenes (as seen in Hunger Games notably).

Concerning the rise and fall (or opposite) of films in the public eye - a very solid point and a good observation of how people change their minds on various media, such as movies but also music - I found the hype The Raid 2 received after it was released exagerated. I could not believe it was that good and I expected negative reviews to pop up at a point. Actually, I've felt the same (finding the hype and overly positive reviews were too much) about several movies: Titanic, Avatar, The Dark Knight... And I usually ended disappointed once I saw the movie (I admit I don't think TDK is that great), though this did NOT happen with The Raid 2.

However, unlike a Special ID (since you mentionned that one) where the trashing was followed by praise, the good reviews kept coming and people mentionned seeing this one and enjoying it again and again - actually, it was more like Tom Yum Goong 2: the opinion remained constant, except that TYG2 was widely seen as a piece of crap. tongue:

[derwood]

I don't believe it's meant to be viewed as just a 'martial arts movie'.

in total agreement, which is why I enjoyed it so much more than the first one

while I still really enjoy the first, it is just an action film, no real depth to the story, more of an introduction to the world the series is set in

the raid 2 goes a little further into this world & adds drama to the mix, pulling me into this world by having me question the actions and motives of characters while also understanding them...if that makes sense

admittedly it was still a little unpolished, especially in the comical character additions which stepped away from the OTT reality and more so into the fantasy side of things, but I could appreciate (as Im sure many of us here could) the efforts to take us into this territory using some unusual ideas, some of which were familiar yet modernized

there is a great deal more I want to know about characters from the raid 2 than those in the raid, berandal made me care more, which has kept it way more fresh in my mind

[Noelle Shadow Kick]

I watched this movie just the other night to show it to my boyfriend (he wouldn't go the two times I saw it in theaters hahaha) and honestly I think the movie %100 holds up. It is one of the best directed action movies I have EVER seen. I'm not talking about the action choreography, I mean Evans as a director. He truly understands what makes a good action film. And the set design is stunning. I genuinely do not think the movie is overhyped.

I think that people who don't like it due to the violence is a totally valid complaint. I don't like things that are gory for the sake of gory, I also find it makes the fights harder to watch because I'm nervous I'll see something terrible haha. That said, the hyper violence is necessary to this movie in my opinion. The action has a total horror aesthetic to it, and that's what makes it distinct. It makes everything that Iko's character is going through that much more horrifying because it is SO brutal and the fights have an actual desperation to it. I think the fights and the style of the fights all say something about the plot at that moment and that the aesthetic is what makes the movie so distinct. I can understand people having a tough time with it, but I can't understand people saying it's a bad film for that reason.

Story side note: After watching the movie with my boyfriend all he did was complain that he felt it had a bad plot! Some people just don't have the right eye for these movies, you know? I don't get it haha.

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

Story side note: After watching the movie with my boyfriend all he did was complain that he felt it had a bad plot! Some people just don't have the right eye for these movies, you know? I don't get it haha.

Dump him!

[Secret Executioner]

Question: where can I adopt someone like that ? You know, the kind that questions the fighting, the violence or the plot. I don't have any of those people on hand.

[Dragons Fury]

saw this on google news.

The Raid 3 News: Julie Estelle 'Hammer Girl' Return As A Different Character Confirmed

http://www.kdramastars.com/articles/31460/20140802/the-raid-3-news.htm

[Secret Executioner]

Raid 2 fact #"whatever-number-you-like": The Raid 2 is so awesome, it can afford having scenes of brutal violence set to classical music without any awkwardness ensuing.

Nx39tzIzLN4

Hell, that piece of music was also used in one of my very favorite movies ever - Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.

[Drunken Monk]

I thought this was pretty cool. The final fight of "The Raid 2" but, this time, with Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian.

You can see the comparison between this version and the actual film as it plays along in the bottom left corner...

xWQgFzz7vuo

[Secret Executioner]

I thought this was pretty cool. The final fight of "The Raid 2" but, this time, with Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian.

You can see the comparison between this version and the actual film as it plays along in the bottom left corner...

xWQgFzz7vuo

Really neat. Makes you wish Rama could have fought Prakoso.

[the moose]

Does the Raid 2 really deserve 76 pages of posts??

[ToryK]

Yes. Yes, it does.

[xianzai]

Does the Raid 2 really deserve 76 pages of posts??

It's an interesting phenomenon. Are the folks obsessed with these films really misplaced horror film fans, or is there an under-served market for "heroic gore", or...?