If you looking for the coolest fight scenes and action you have seen on a movie look no further then the raid. Sadly no Silat masters near me:) I will always be an advocate for raid 1 but raid 2 and the whole syndicate stuff was a bit over the top. Raid 1 didn't have a whole lot of story but you could bond with a swat officer going to do some bad stuff but in the end of the day just wanting to get home to his wife and kids and have reconciliation with his brother. Tremendous action baby. Second one took it up a notch for better and for worse. The fight scenes and stunts were all the more BA and creative but it sort of ended there for me. They just wanted to so out do the first one which I say they did, but they had to take like the cgi gore spatting in the camera from a good amount to like 300: rise of an empire level gore.. that coupled with the constant betrayals and deceit and treatment of women, and literal slitting of throats randomly was never ending without a break. Look I know that happens, but have a little better pacing like raid 1 or else it gets a bit depressing. In scenes I would go from wow oh dang to what is even going on right now this is a little psychotic. Also it make me think of some current things going on between west papa New Guinean s and East Indonesians which adds some dislike to the movie. Good movie. A bit much. Maybe stick with raid 1. I would wait for your kids to at least be in their late teens or early twenties or unless they are real mature.

After the overwhelming success of Serbuan Maut (The Raid: Redemption) it's not surprising that Gareth Evans got the greenlight to make another one. Berandal (The Raid 2) continues where Serbuan Maut left, with an expectation to be... bigger. And it is big. Bigger budget, bigger ensemble, multiple locations, a car chase scene and clocking in at 150 minutes long, Berandal had the promised of be the sequel that we don't need but certainly the sequel that we deserve but it just fell short of living up to its lofty potential. Firstly the flaws; there were scenes and characters in the film that simply didn't belong and wholly unnecessary. The first is Yayan Ruhian as Prakoso; I don't fault Gareth Evans for wanting to include Yayan Ruhian again; hell, I would to but Yayan Ruhian is wasted as Prakoso, a character that could be played by anyone and certainly didn't need 3 scenes with 2 lackadaisical fight scenes. In one of the scenes, Perkoso ended up outside a club, during winter time, in tropical Jakarta; this is just pretentious nonsense; no one is South East Asia would ever believe that there is snow in the equator. Then there is also Batter and Hammer Girl; who are entirely necessary to the plot and their fight scenes were also lackluster. Julie Estelle as Hammer Girl especially, is really really weak; there was no acting, she can't fight, her choreography is crap. I think Gareth Evans was pressured into adding too much, and so, the film feels like it has a lot of 'bloatware.' All in all, you could at least cut off 30 minutes from the movie, which would've been a better outcome. More doesn't always mean more; less can be more. So, now the good. The movie has an excellent ensemble cast, even Yayan Ruhian shines as his role as Prakoso. Standout performances by Iko Uwais reprising his role as Rama, Ariffin Putra is fantastic as Uco (and he speaks excellent English), Tio Pakusadewo is credible as the mafia boss Bangun (and he speaks great Japanese), Ryuhei Matsuda and Keinichi Endo as the Goto family yakuza. The story had the potential to be really great a la Infernal Affairs or The Departed but due to the aforementioned 'bloatware' the story was reduced to gang rivalry, and a one man commando against the Indonesian Preman. I applaud Gareth Evans for depicting real criminal behavior along and this adds authenticity and believability to the film. Had, Evans cut out all the pretentious scenes out, he would have something really close to greatness. The best fight scene must be between Iko Uwais and Cecep Arif Rahman in the Kitchen fight with Karambit knives. This fight scene is as close to a real Silat fight as you can get and it was very well done. As it is, it's not bad. Berandal is not as good as Serbuan Maut, but it's still an entertaining affair.

Quite simply one of the greatest action films ever made. If you like action watch this film!The action scenes are so beautifully choreographed it ranks as a FULL 10. No ifs or buts, this is currently THE action standard by which other films need to be judged. The action starts as top-notch and keeps improving as the film progresses.It also has a decent plot although possibly overlong in this respect. We don't expect a classic musical to have the world's best plot, so why an action movie? So many critics fail on this point!The director, Gareth Evans, is going to be seriously big in the industry as are his cohorts Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian who contributed the unbelievably good action sequences.The fact that this was produced for an estimated under $5m is shameful on Hollywood.Watch it, be amazed, get a huge fix of adrenaline, and wonder why Hollywood can't get close to the raw intensity generated by these action scenes.

First of all, I do not understand the complaints some people have with this movie. No guns? Indonesia isn't a country where it's easy to obtain guns. Do you watch war movies and complain "no a-bombs"? Too long? Why can't a movie be 150 minutes or even 230 or 500 minutes if it's good? Because too much over-stimulation has lowered our attention span? Then here's a good way to train it again(or the great "Love Exposure").Some complained that the story didn't make sense, that the first part had better fight scenes, etc...Naturally, the first part had to rely more on fight scenes, since they didn't have the budget for many locations or a bigger story. Here, we still get to see a lot of(creative) fight scenes, but we also get to see a car chase, some shootings, betrayal...For me, the only "complaints" are the snow scene(as beautiful as it is, it might as well snow in hell, it's Jakarta!) and...I think that's about it. And it's beautiful to watch, so it's not really a problem for me. Another small issue for me are the subtitles...my Indonesian is far from fluent, but I noticed that most of the time, the translation is far from what they're actually saying. Sometimes, it's just minor differences, but some differences are pretty big. For example, Uco refers to his father as "Sir"/"pa"(short for "bapak"). Now, "pak" or "pa" is indeed how you usually refer to older males in Indonesia(cab drivers, street vendors). But why would a son refer to his father as sir? But again, these are small things and especially the subtitles are not the directors fault, nor the actors.On the plus side, we have a real story this time. And it isn't just some cookie-cutter story line, but it's a pretty good one too! It has twists, it is exciting, it has interesting characters(and develops them). We get to see how Uco can't handle to stand in his father's shadow and how it eats him up inside...we can see how, despite being on the other side of the law(which he upheld so much in part 1), Rama realizes that the world isn't just black and white, good or bad...and that even among the "bad" guys, there are some who are really bad and some who may have strayed(Eka). Also, as someone who loves Indonesia and who's been to Jakarta countless times, I really love to see a movie in which we actually get to see this great city. It's a really nice change of venue and I wish a lot more movies would be shot in cities like this...it can be romantic(Thamrin at night, the underpass at Jl. Blora), it can be spooky and creepy(North Jakarta, parts of Grogol, East Jkt), it can be commercial(this city has probably 150 malls or more). Sure, it is unrealistically empty(anyone who's been to Jakarta will know that any street is basically NEVER empty, no matter how late at night or early in the day) and the car chase seems to be done, circling around the CBD only(which makes sense though, as Jakarta suffers from huge traffic issues and it would be a lot easier to stop traffic there than in any of the major roads). But at least it gives people an idea what this city looks like and might allow for more people to visit it.I hope that we'll get to see more good movies from Indonesia in the future, even with Gareth Evans having left the country. Before him, most of the movies they made were shallow soap opera-like romantic comedies or dramas, all of which not very appealing to non- Indonesians(and even many Indonesians, according to my friends). It's an underestimated country and I'd be happy to see it receive more international fame.