The Furious

Directed by Kenji Tanigaki, The Furious follows Xie Miao’s Wei as he embarks on a relentless campaign of violence after his beloved daughter is kidnapped. It’s foolproof subject matter that is, at the outset, employed to entertaining effect by Tanigaki, as the filmmaker, armed with Mak Tin Shu, Lei Zhilong, Shum Kwan Sin, and Frank Hui’s screenplay, delivers a briskly-paced endeavor that boasts a new high-octane action sequence every few minutes – with the intensity and creativity of said action sequences initially compensating for the picture’s various deficiencies (including terrible periphery performances and laughable English-language dubbing). There reaches a point, however, at which The Furious begins to palpably run out of steam, and it’s clear, certainly, that the proliferation of (admittedly impressive) fight interludes does begin to wear on the viewer – with the seemingly endless brawl that concludes the proceedings, as a result, hardly able to pack the visceral, exciting punch Tanigaki has obviously intended (ie it’s just exhausting, ultimately). The end result is a disappointing martial-arts thriller that would undoubtedly have fared better had it topped out at 90 minutes, although, to be fair, some of the set-pieces are admittedly compelling enough to warrant a mild recommendation. (This is particularly true of a mid-movie battle involving a hammer and multiple goons.)

** out of ****