Two men fight for loved ones who have been kidnapped and tormented by a gang of human traffickers. The choreographed fights are impressive and the film’s message of bravery in the face of evil is powerful. But the profanity and gruesome violence on tap is bound to soak in.
Matia is a young and earnest reporter with a single-minded zeal for the scores of kids who have gone missing in her inner-city district. The police authorities take names and make reports, but nothing seems to get done. And when Matia gets close enough to actually start making headway on the story … she goes missing, too.
Matia’s husband, Navin, is beside himself with worry. Their city is overrun with organized crime. Whispers of human trafficking are everywhere. Where can he begin to look for his beloved spouse? But then again, it doesn’t matter. He will dig. He will probe every filthy corner of the city. He will not give up until he finds her.
Meanwhile, Wang is a simple handyman trying to raise his young daughter, Rainy, as best he can. He’s trying to teach Rainy important things, trying to do what’s best for her in this danger-filled world. But ever since his wife’s passing, taking proper care of his daughter has seemed like a very difficult job.
Then, after an unexpected clash between dad and daughter, Rainy storms out into the street in anger. And before Wang can go after her, Rainy gets grabbed by large men, knocked unconscious, wrapped in a bag and tossed like garbage into the back of an open truck bed.
Fortunately, Wang gets there just as the truck is pulling away. He kicks off his flip-flops and gives chase. He fights the men and pulls the bag off his daughter. He almost saves her.
But then, after a prolonged and ugly battle with the large brutes, he’s beaten down, battered, pummeled and left bleeding in the street.
However, Wang still saw the men’s faces. He saw clues that point to a certain fight club in the city. And though he’s just a simple handyman, Wang is not without certain abilities learned from a hard life. He will not give up.
Of course, the crime syndicate that dominates this city owns the police captain, too. It runs the biggest human-trafficking racket in all of Southeast Asia. It is no paper tiger. The organization is manned by scores and scores of heavily muscled thugs. What can one angry handyman do against a force like that?
Probably not a lot.
But should that furious father meet an enraged husband and start working with him … well, who knows what might be accomplished. All men bleed if you hit them hard enough.
Wang and Navin are men on a mission. They share a single red-hot compulsion to save the people they love. And they put everything they have on the line to do so. Wang and Navin eventually form a sort of friendship, and the two bravely rush to each other’s rescue repeatedly.
Rainy also forges new bonds. She works diligently to help free other captive children. She befriends a child with no family and promises to take him in if they both survive. And she’s willing to put herself between a thug and a victim, even though she has no discernable fighting skills. Like her dad, Rainy is also willing to run back into the fray to help others. She eventually reunites with her dad and expresses her love for him.
There’s also a beleaguered police sergeant who disobeys her crooked captain’s orders so that she can help children and others in need. Several cops are shot (and sometimes killed) for their upright efforts.
All in all, the film stresses the need for people to be aware of the cruelty and wickedness around them and to stand up to evil in whatever way they can. The deck is stacked against us, the film says, but you mustn’t turn your head.
None.
The big boss at a fight club is also a pimp for a large group of prostitutes, and we see him surrounded by pretty women in tight and low-cut outfits.
As you might assume in a martial arts film of this stripe, thumping and slamming violence is nearly constant. It’s all masterfully choreographed, but those tightly choreographed beat-down scenes continue to ante up the level of violence and deadliness with each fight.
We see children get manhandled, beaten and sliced by blades. Young Rainy gets the worst of those batterings, though. She’s yanked up by her hair and dangled head-down over the side of a speeding truck (her face barely missing the pavement). She’s thrown about and kicked in the face by grown men; she falls from several stories high; she gets shot in the leg by an arrow that pierces through; and she bleeds profusely from multiple wounds. Two different women also get pounded, thrown and shot with bullets and arrows. A very pregnant woman gets stabbed in the abdomen by a large knife.
As for the guys, well, there are scores and scores of combatants who enter into frenetic battles only to be left writhing with broken bones and gushing wounds—or left for dead. We see men get thrown and flipped, kicked and punched. They run in with flailing arms and legs.
One very large man rages forward head-first, ramming anything or anyone in his path. Arms get broken over railings or smashed by heavy objects. Legs get smashed and obliterated by hammers and large pipes. Combatants battle with everything from broken bottles to bicycles. Many people get shot in the face or chest by arrows (some from mere feet away). One guy is left pinned to a car, his body riddled with dozens of arrows. Men also get shot by pistols and shotguns, battered by hammers and sliced by machetes. Eyes get gouged.
An individual gets pounded relentless by a sledgehammer, breaking his ribs and crushing his skull. Throats get cut. One guy rips open another man’s throat with his teeth. A man staggers away from a gruesome battle covered in and spitting up blood. He then falls over dead with blood dribbling from his eyes and ears. A man bites off another man’s finger and slashes open the throat of another with broken glass. Someone gets their teeth bashed out by a hammer blow.
We see men tortured on several occasions. One man is strung up on a chain-link fence by barbed wire, for instance, and he’s then hit with so many high-power blasts of electricity that he voids his bowels and bladder. Another thug gets tortured by his own crew, his face covered in open wounds and gore. His crew then freezes him in a large block of ice. Later, the frozen man gets beheaded when the block gets kicked by a very large man. We see one limb sawn off by a large blade. Blood regularly spatters or smears the walls and floors.
Frankly though, that’s only the tip of the iceberg for the batterings and carnage here. The varied attacks are almost too numerous to list.
The movie dialogue contains 15 f-words and a half-dozen s-words. It’s also spattered with multiple uses of “a–hole,” “b–ch” and “h—.” God’s name is misused four or five times (once in combination with “d–n”).
Navin smokes repeatedly throughout the film. We see some others with a cigarette occasionally. People in a fight club drink booze. And a couple guys drink beer together on a street.
A police captain is corrupt and refuses to allow police or the public to help with any trafficking problems, even when the violations are obvious to all. When Rainy is first captured, it’s because she follows an injured boy who says he needs help. (Even though she initially hates him for his deception, they eventually become friends.)
In our real world, which is filled with daily stories of terrible choices and evil acts, it can almost feel a bit therapeutic when we stumble upon a cinematic tale like the one presented in The Furious. It tells of two seemingly average dudes (both with hidden abilities) who fight heroically against foul human traffickers to save their loved ones. It’s an emotional narrative.
There’s also no denying the adrenaline rush and choreographed brilliance of the wall-to-wall martial arts brawling on display in this pic. In fact, of the 113 minutes of The Furious, some 90 of those incorporate one fight after another—ever more elaborate, ever more exhilarating, ever more brutal.
But therein lies the eye-gouging rub of things. For while we’re relishing the catharsis of good triumphing over tremendous evil, we’re also swallowed up by long stretches of painfully realistic bone breaks, flesh-mulching gore, profane exclamations and screams of agony.
You can’t help but wonder if you’re coming out better or worse after that immersion, no matter how well-crafted the movie may be.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
