When guns are scarce everything else is a weapon, from regular hammer to sludgehammers, empty water jugs, a tin cover for an electrical box, and even full size bicycles are used as swords. But most importantly though is your knuckles and knees. This film is loaded with hand-to-combat. People are thrown, slammed, and whipped to the ground. I don’t recall seeing so many people on the ground fight and slide into kick out other people knees. People are climbing on top of each other. It’s a brawl, a cleverly made looking brawl and the camera is a part of it. Sometimes it’s in the fight huddle, other times the camera inches away. The stunts are outstanding. Danger continues to burst out from any direction. I would venture to guess that many stunt people endure some form of injury making this. They had to. “The Furious” throws all it could at you and more. It’s another film that proves that the Lone Wolf and Cub formula works, as well as the MIssion Impossible formula- that story is just a vessel for the stunts and fights.  What it does differently is  it probes darker than that franchise, it doesn’t mind getting it’s hands dirty. The bad guys are child-traffickers at the “Criminal MInds” level of horror. The result is a solid film that will please the fans of this kind of genre of action film. It’s compelling while still not being all that original, as stated before using a lot of tropes from previous films. What it does is push the boundaries of pure relentless, brutal fight and action scenes. This film never lets go of the brakes. 

“The Furious” is not shy about what it is and not shy to plunge into the filth. It’s a dirty, bloody mess to take a criminal organization without guns and sometimes you have to fight in the trash bins among the garbage. In the hands of a different director it could easily be a horror film. “The Furious” isn’t that, it is well crafted and choreographed stunt work that is just simply amazing. Fight Scenes made it look chaotic but there’s a flow to it that makes it feel poetic. I still recall that one scene where the camera follows the stunt guys all the way to the ground floor from a ten foot drop. 

There are a few things that do hurt  the film. Mainly is the duration. It’s about fifteen minutes longer than it needs to be.   The second is the English dubbing. This film would just be far more enticing and easier to fall into if it used subtitles. I mean our main protagonist is mute in this and uses sign language to communicate and those are subtitled anyways. I would love to see a version of this subtitled. It would be a lot more compelling to hear the actors speaking in their native tongue than having voice-overs that don’t quite match up to who they dubbing over. Overall, “The Furious” is a mesmerizing action-pack film to see in the theater, but schedule a nap after seeing it. 8/10