Blog Archives

Triple Threat (2019)

I’ve been waiting to see Triple Threat for over two years. Seemingly caught up with distribution difficulties and generating little buzz, it nevertheless carries the potential to be an all-time action classic. Check that cast list. It’s absolutely stacked with talented action practitioners. Real ones, who know how to make fights look good. Even if not all the names are widely known, the sheer amount of experience there is mouth-watering for a dedicated action fan. Game on!

It’s always exciting … (read more)

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The Raid 2: Berandal (2014)

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Three years ago, director Gareth Evans’ second film, The Raid arrived in Aussie cinemas with a bang. It’s the first Indonesian film I can remember ever getting a wide release here (and in North America, where it was first retitled The Raid: Redemption and given a soundtrack workover), and it won a great deal of attention from critics and dyed-in-the-wool action cinema fans. Evans had managed to craft a taut, focused genre film fusing well-trodden Hollywood tropes with the harder … (read more)

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The Raid (2011)

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The Raid opens nationwide on the 22nd of March. Check Madman’s site for more details.

Director Gareth Evans and newly-minted action star Iko Uwais have followed up their 2009 martial arts flick Merantau with this hard-edged action film, and Madman have been good enough to bring it to cinemas nationwide! The last big action movie I remember them doing a cinema release for in Australia was Ong Bak, a logical point of comparison for this one — both come … (read more)

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Merantau (2009)

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It seems that every time I read or hear anything about Merantau, the new action film from Indonesia, it is invariably being compared with the Thai martial arts classic Ong Bak. Having just seen Merantau myself, I can certainly appreciate some similarities between the 2 films, in particular the starring of an unknown actor who has amazing fighting skills, combining speed, agility and fearlessness to wow the audience. However, there are also quite a lot of very obvious … (read more)

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