The Raid starring Iko Uwais

[GeneChing]

...as for the U.S. Box, well, we'll see, right? America is still not very accepting of films with an Asian male lead.

Gareth Evans’ Martial Arts Film ‘The Raid’ Picks Up Two Awards at The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival
7:42 AM PST 2/28/2012 by Stuart Kemp


Movie starring martial artist Iko Uwais makes off with the audience award and the Dublin Film Critics Circle Best Film prize.

LONDON – Gareth Evans’ martial arts film The Raid, starring Indonesian martial artist Iko Uwais, scored with both the audience and critics alike at this year’s Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.

The movie, already a big hit at festivals including the people’s choice award during last year’s Toronto Film Festival, picked up the audience award and the Dublin Film Critics Circle Best Film prize.

Other nods dished out at the end of the Irish festival included a best actress plaudit for Greta Gerwig for her turn in Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress.

This best screenplay nod went to Joseph Cedar’s Footnote while Nuala: A Life and Death was named best Irish film by the Dublin Film Critics Circle.

Michael Fuith took home the best actor award for his role in Markus Schleinzer’s Michael.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan won the best director plaudit for Once Upon A Time In Anatolia.

Al Pacino was awarded the Volta by president Michael D. Higgins for his outstanding contribution to film.

Guests turning out for the festival, celebrating its 10th year, included Pacino, Martin Sheen, Glenn Close, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Madsen, Stillman, Kenneth Lonergan, Agnieszka Holland and Marjane Satrapi.

[GeneChing]

Indonesian Action Flick – The Raid is Instant Classic
By Ryan Baladad
– March 5, 2012Posted in: Art, Arts-Entertainment

It is rarely said about movies, but The Raid is an instant classic. Whether anyone is a film buff, an action junkie or simply wants mindless entertainment, this Indonesian film is a must see. Filmed with bold, readable English subtitles, The Raid is a brilliant action flick from any angle you view it.

It was chosen as an official selection at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, receiving much praise, and will be featured at this year’s Sundance and SXSW film festivals.
Director and writer, Gareth Huw Evans is an up-and-coming filmmaker, and with the help of The Raid, hopes to bring the Indonesian martial art, Pencak Silat, to the world stage.

He teams up again with Iko Uwais, actor and fight choreographer from Evan’s previous film, Merantau. Uwais plays the lead role, Rama, a rookie in the local SWAT team. Rama and his colleagues set out on a deadly covert mission to capture Tama, played by Ray Sahetaphy, an infamous and ruthless crime lord, in his own 15-story tenement.

Prior to the mission, the team lead, Jaka, played by Joe Taslim, briefs his men and voices his hopes that no seats will later be empty. It is an emotionally-charged scene reminiscent of the military troops on D-Day during World War II.

The team begins to infiltrate each room floor by floor in the dilapidated deathtrap with a stealthy success…until a spotter sees them. Instantly, the spotter triggers a blaring alarm that alerts Tama, who then via a speaker system offers free rent to tenants who can exterminate the recent infestation.

From that point forward, Tama shuts down the lights and a Pandora’s Box of threats is unleashed, including snipers, squads of gunmen with automatic rifles, machete-wielding maniacs and other random ruckus. It will make audiences think if the SWAT team will ever survive and they will want to see the outcome.

The Raid has a compelling amount of martial arts in tight spaces. Think hallways and apartment living rooms. Intense imagery is found throughout the film and at times the attacks are close up, graphic and realistic.

Uwais displays his fighting skill with such deadly grace. Consider Uwais as the next martial arts star, ranking up there with Jet Li (Fist of Legend, Fearless) or Tony Jaa (The Ong Bak trilogy).

As the SWAT team tries to survive, it is revealed that things are not as it seems. Aside from the non-stop action, the plot unfolds accordingly with a few twists, leaving audiences content with the outcome.

Listen closely for the original works of a collaboration with Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park and composer Joseph Trapanese, who recently worked with Daft Punk on the Tron: Legacy score. The duo definitely helped set the tone for each scene of the movie.

Take note that The Raid will infiltrate limited theaters in the Bay Area on March 23, 2012. It is not yet rated. Running time: 100 minutes

March 23 openings
San Francisco: Metreon, Sundance Kabuki
Berkeley: Shattuck
Mountain View: Century 16
Pleasant Hill: Cinearts
San Jose: Santana Row
San Rafael: Regency

April 13 openings
Union City: Century 25
Milpitas: Century 20 Great Mall

I called Iko as 'the next martial arts star' back with Merantau

...it's really about Iko's choreography. He's the new young turk to watch in martial arts films. Silat is an exciting style for film that blends some kung fu sensibilities with other Pac Rim styles like Muay Thai and Kali. I don't even know how to properly pronounce Iko Uwais yet, but I will soon.

[doug maverick]

...as for the U.S. Box, well, we'll see, right? America is still not very accepting of films with an Asian male lead.

accept in martial arts oriented action films like this one...unfortunately

[Jimbo]

...as for the U.S. Box, well, we'll see, right? America is still not very accepting of films with an Asian male lead.

That's an understatement.

Like doug says, except in MA-type films, or I would add, Asian-themed episodes of TV shows.

IMO someone like Russell Wong should have been a big mainstream star. He could have been, too, but for his being Asian. Instead, he ended up having to take increasingly stereotyped roles in worse and worse movies. He's but one example, though admittedly there are comparatively few Asian-American male actors.

[GeneChing]

THE RAID by Greg Lynch Jr.

[enoajnin]

The Raid had a per screen average of $15,786 on fourteen screens. The only film that had a higher per screen average this weekend was, of course, Hunger Games.

[GeneChing]

Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda Rocks on to New Challenge: 'The Raid: Redemption' Film Score (Q&A)
The songwriter and keyboardist talks about tackling Asian stereotypes and taking advantage of serendipitous career choices as he premieres his first film score.
4:29 PM PDT 3/21/2012 by Todd Gilchrist

In a little more than a decade, Linkin Park has racked up more than 30 credits contributing songs or other pieces of music to a variety of movies and television programs. But frontman Mike Shinoda has never been satisfied with just one outlet for his creativity, and his solo work on the Fort Minor album, along with an assortment of remixes and productions for other artists, has led perhaps inevitably back to another medium in which the band has experienced so much success: movies.

Working with Tron: Legacy orchestrator Joe Trapanese, Shinoda created not just a soundtrack but a full-blown score for The Raid: Redemption, writer-director Gareth Evans’ epic action thriller about an Indonesian SWAT team that gets trapped in a drug dealer’s fortresslike tenement building. As the musician continues to expand his repertoire, Shinoda talked with The Hollywood Reporter about making the transition into scoring movies and taking on new challenges.

The Hollywood Reporter: How did you initially get involved with this project, and how much did you know about the movie beforehand?

Mike Shinoda: With Linkin Park being placed in so many films, I've gotten a few offers to get involved in scoring before. A lot of the stuff really hasn't been my cup of tea; generally it's like: "Hey, we love Linkin Park. We've got this composer on board, but we want to put your name on the poster, and we want you to put heavy rock guitars on the score." That's really not very inspiring for me, and I'm not at a place in my career where I feel like doing that kind of thing gets me anywhere. But I got approached by Sony, and the guy basically said, "We’re fans of your Fort Minor stuff [and] some of the remixes you've done -- would you want to score this film?" They basically were saying they were going to trust me with the whole thing. What they were talking about is a couple of pieces of work that I did for fun – the Fort Minor album and the remixes, I basically did those on afternoons hanging out in my studio and started messing around with something and turned it into something that I ended up putting out. So I figured if I could do that and get some experience with a film, then it'd be a great opportunity -- and it did end up being exactly that.

THR: Coming into an Indonesian film, and you being Japanese-American, was there any conscious thought about the idea of being an Asian-American working on an Asian action film?

Shinoda: That's funny. I know there was a conversation at one point where we said for the most part we're going to try to avoid traditional instruments, because I'm not that familiar with them and even if I read on Wikipedia that this particular instrument is the most popular traditional Indonesian instrument, it's still like I don't have an expertise in that instrument and I'm not going to try and use it in a clunky way. So we basically tried to stay away from that for the most part. There's a couple of scenes in the film where we went with some very traditional sounding or organic sounding drums, I think those reference points do have a kind of Taiko [drumming] kind of feel. But in no way did I try and bring some kind of Indonesian musical sound; in fact, I avoided it. Joe and I both avoided it because it's not us. It was out of respect for the people. But I feel like for me, we tour all over the world and we have actually a really fantastic fan base in Indonesia and I know it's pretty clear to them that I'm not Indonesian.

THR: Sure, but it seems like Hollywood isn't always sensitive to the differences between Asian cultures.

Shinoda: I feel like people who make that mistake might benefit from an awareness of the website Disgrasian. It’s one of my favorite Asian-centric American websites, and they constantly make fun of Hollywood's tendency to kind of mix and match Asian culture.

THR: How challenging was it to make the transition from realizing that certain pieces of music you had created were good for certain kinds of sequences to actually creating them specifically for those kinds of sequences?

Shinoda: I did a little piece of scoring for an independent that Rob Dyrdek put together called Street Dreams, and I did some other things that nobody will ever see. And then eventually when Linkin Park did the Transformers movies, on the second one we got to get involved on the score in that one, and I think that got me excited -- it was a little taste of what it could be like. And so when I first got involved, I told Gareth that I wanted to approach it more like a score; I didn't want to try and just make songs and have somebody else edit them together, which I know is a possibility. He seemed to be really receptive to that, and in fact at the end of the process he said that was one of the moments when he got the most confidence about the relationship because I intended to approach it in a way that was complementary to what he had done. I brought Joe Trapanese on board, who was Daft Punk's scoring partner on the TRON soundtrack, because I love what he did on that movie and I really thought that bringing somebody with a more traditional background would be an educational opportunity for me. He not only [taught] me about simple technical stuff like the workflow, but also just we could provide a point of reference for one another -- like are we being true enough to scoring the film without getting too distracting in the music, are we being bold enough with the music that it's not just a boring generic score, stuff like that. I think that the collaboration really benefitted all of us.

THR: Did you have any concerns about joining the film with another score already created?

Shinoda: Absolutely. I think that was the scariest moment, going to Sundance when the film debuted with my score in it, because I knew that it had already won awards, there was a ton of buzz about the movie, and people were going to Sundance just to see this movie. Some of them had already seen it with the other score and it would be awful if people had written reviews saying "this movie is great, we've seen it for the second or third time, they ruined the score though." Luckily I haven't seen anybody say that. It may be out there, but I haven't seen it. But I didn't go into it trying to compare what I was going to do with their thing; we basically started from a clean slate, got a few notes from the music supervisor at Sony that were basic ideas that Gareth wanted to make sure happened, but for the most part he was very open to what we wanted to come with. I mean he was a dream scenario in the sense that we had a lot of artistic freedom to come up with what should go on in each scene.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

THR: how did you look at this in terms of what people might be expecting?

Shinoda: I have a background in piano -- in fact, that's where I started out. I spent ten years playing classical piano, and that was what led to keyboards and eventually to production and to Linkin Park. I remember transitioning out of piano after about 12 years of doing it and I had told my piano teacher I loved playing piano but I hate playing these classical pieces – “I hate homework, having to take home these things and learn them.” They were not my favorite kind of music, and all I saw myself doing was basically learning all the loops on my favorite rap songs and playing that on the piano for my friends. And my piano teacher was a saint; she was so sweet about it and said "I honestly can't teach you that, and it's okay if you want to quit lessons. But here's what you should do -- buy a keyboard and learn what that's about and I can try and help you find another teacher if you want." Jumping forward, there's a balance to be aware of in this movie where I wanted it to sound like me, to sound what they probably expected, and also to surprise people, just to keep it fresh and keep people on their toes. So as we went along there are definitely moments where sounds that I think you would expect to pop up, and there are these other moments that just provides variety in the score and keeps people guessing.

THR: Now natural was your movement towards this opportunity? Was it sort of a serendipitous convergence of events, or did it sort of come out of the blue?

Shinoda: It's a little bit of all of that. On one hand I've always loved the exercise of making music to fit something visual, and we joked about this score [being] almost like reverse engineering of a music video. You've got the dance on the screen -- the fight scene is a carefully choreographed number and we've got to make music that they're dancing to. And we found that there is actually a rhythm to a lot of the scenes that would ebb and flow. And once we found that rhythm, the score really locked into the action. For me it's just always something that's kind of lingered in the back of my head. I remember being a little kid sitting in the living room with my brother and some friends from around the neighborhood, and I would sit at the piano and as they were running around the room doing different things and being silly, acting out, I would actually play the score for it -- the music that went along with it. So if they're creeping along the side of the wall, I'm making this mysterious detective music or whatever it may be. And I think it just kind of sits there in the back of your head and when the moment arrives then we might be able to seize it and do something with it, then you jump. For me with this score too it's the right kind of movie -- I felt like I wanted to go into it and give it 100%. I'm not just going to say yes to this and then just kind of half-ass it, but at the same time if I make some mistakes along the way, this is the place to do it. And I found that I would love to do some more scoring and I really do enjoy the process and I enjoy what happened here. But I think that, to be fair, the next thing that I do probably won't be an action film.

THR: Have you lined up any participation in the sequel to The Raid, Berandal?

Shinoda: I'm actually not aware of how far through he is, so we haven't really talked about it. The answer at this point would be no.

THR: Where do you feel like you're at in your career now – is this a fully new direction to go into, or do you look at this as a digression from your Linkin Park and Fort Minor efforts?

Shinoda: I don't think this is a sign of any kind of infidelity; this isn't like I'm restless with Linkin Park and I needed to stretch out and do something else. We have moments with the band where I have an opportunity to dive into something else and I enjoy having my hands in a lot of different things, as evidenced by all the other random weird stuff that I've done along the way from art shows to projects with other artists. As a creative person you just get an idea in your head, and sometimes you just can't shake it off. When it comes to the scoring, I intend to have a healthy balance between that and the stuff that I do with Linkin Park. We're in the studio right now with the band making a record which I'm really really happy with, and I feel like the best part about it is the things that I do that are not Linkin Park, they all complement one another. As I finished up the score for The Raid I realized some things about the working process that were so useful and they were great tools that I then took to the studio with the band and I loosened up our workflow. With The Raid, you just kind of go down the rabbit hole and you don't really check in as often. With our band we tend to check in every week or even more often, and sometimes that disrupts the creative process. So I told the guys about that and we started putting it in place, and it has great results. I think it's healthy, at least for me.

I'm a huge fan of Indonesian gamelan. Traditional music would have been interesting, but it's a hard call not having seen the film yet.

[Jimbo]

I really enjoyed The Raid: Redemption.

In Merantau, I thought that Iko Uwais looked a bit like 'Tony Jaa Lite' in the MA department, although he was a better actor. Such a comparison was inevitable. In The Raid, it's cool to see how his choreagraphy has grown and developed since then. He and his stunt team have fully come into their own, with their own distinctive (and brutal) style. IMO, the team of Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais have far surpassed the quality of Tony Jaa's films. The fights in The Raid are more about inflicting extreme damage, as opposed to showing off super-athleticism/XMA/Parkour-style fights.

For an early show, I was surprised at the number of people in the audience...not even half-full, but being an early show and a subtitled film, a good number. And a pretty good audience response, too. Which does not happen at the movies too often anymore.

If I have a complaint about the film at all, it's the often shaky camerawork, probably done to enhance the sense of tension and chaos. Sometimes it's shaky even when there is no action going on. Also, why would such a powerful (and presumably rich) crime boss choose such a ****hole of a building as his base? But those are small things. This is probably the best action film to come out in years.

@ Gene:
There's no sword fights, but plenty of knife and machete fighting.

10/10.

[doug maverick]

I really enjoyed The Raid: Redemption.

In Merantau, I thought that Iko Uwais looked a bit like 'Tony Jaa Lite' in the MA department, although he was a better actor. Such a comparison was inevitable. In The Raid, it's cool to see how his choreagraphy has grown and developed since then. He and his stunt team have fully come into their own, with their own distinctive (and brutal) style. IMO, the team of Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais have far surpassed the quality of Tony Jaa's films. The fights in The Raid are more about inflicting extreme damage, as opposed to showing off super-athleticism/XMA/Parkour-style fights.

For an early show, I was surprised at the number of people in the audience...not even half-full, but being an early show and a subtitled film, a good number. And a pretty good audience response, too. Which does not happen at the movies too often anymore.

If I have a complaint about the film at all, it's the often shaky camerawork, probably done to enhance the sense of tension and chaos. Sometimes it's shaky even when there is no action going on. Also, why would such a powerful (and presumably rich) crime boss choose such a ****hole of a building as his base? But those are small things. This is probably the best action film to come out in years.

@ Gene:
There's no sword fights, but plenty of knife and machete fighting.

10/10.

when i saw this here in nyc the theatre was jammed packed...on a tuesday...in nyc...thats impossible...the hunger games wasnt even half full. this movie was awesome...best action film ive seen in years, what makes this movie superior to the baa raam ewe films is two things, good acting and good story....which none of the tony jaa films or the other baa raam ewe films seem to have, the one exception being chocolate and even that story was eh. as for the action....it was top notch hollywood couldnt improve on it...my only problem was the hand to hand combat, because every fighter used the same style and tactics. i like it when each fighter has his or her own flavor. this was certainly an 8 out 10...im shaving two points because of the hand to hand. as for the american remake as long as they dont put ryan reynolds in it..ill see it.

[GeneChing]

There's no sword fights, but plenty of knife and machete fighting.

Machetes totally count as swords.

[GeneChing]

April 3, 2012, 12:06 PM SGT
“The Raid” Takes Indonesian Box Office By Storm
By Ahmad Pathoni

The action movie that has American reviewers raving lately isn’t a Hollywood product or a Chinese martial arts extravaganza. It’s a low-budget Indonesian action flick titled “The Raid: Redemption.”

The Raid, which cost only about $1 million to produce, has taken international film critics and audiences by storm since it won the Midnight Madness Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. It has earned an impressive 85 percent rating on rottentomatoes.com, a U.S. website dedicated to movie reviews.

The film’s international success has also provided a breath of fresh air for Indonesia’s cinema, which is notorious for producing mainly poor-quality horror movies with bizarre and sexually suggestive titles such as “The Virgin Ghost’s Boyfriend” and “Dancing Ghost in the Bathroom.”

“This is the first time in history that an Indonesian movie has been screened in theaters in the United States, Canada and Australia. We are extremely proud,” said The Raid producer Ario Sagantaro. The Raid is due to hit U.K. theaters in May.

The Los Angeles Times called it “a slam-bang, knock-your-socks-off action bonanza” while the New York Post dubbed it an action lover’s dream par excellence. Salon.com had The Raid as its Pick of the Week on March 23, calling it “a dazzling martial-arts sensation,” while Minneapolis Star Tribune declared that the movie “is a kick that will leave your head ringing for days.”

The movie has also proved to be a sensation in Indonesia since it began screening in local theaters on March 23. It was directed by Welsh-born Gareth Evans, who first came to Indonesia four years ago to do a documentary on a local martial-arts form known as pencak silat, and is married to an Indonesian woman of Japanese heritage. While making the documentary, Mr. Evans met Iko Uwais, The Raid’s main protagonist, a silat athlete who was working as a driver for a telecommunications company.

The film follows a SWAT-like police squad on a mission to take out a cold-blooded drug lord Tama (Ray Sahetapy), who holes himself in a rundown Jakarta apartment building with his henchmen. The team soon encounters resistance from gun-toting and machete-wielding criminals loyal to Tama, setting the stage for brutal gunfights and stunning displays of bare-hand battles featuring pencak silat. Iko Uwais plays Rama, a rookie officer who has to finish the mission after his comrades fall one by one.

“The film is so brutal it made me squirm in my seat throughout. The fighting and the cast are top-notch,” said action movie fan Budi Heryana after watching the film in a Jakarta cinema.

Hesti Purwaningsih, a production coordinator at Merantau Films, which produced The Raid, said 250,000 people had watched the movie over its first four days – a great turnout for an Indonesian film.

It’s not clear if The Raid will be able to match Indonesia’s biggest blockbuster hit of all time, Laskar Pelangi (Rainbow Troops), which drew 4.6 million cinemagoers in 2008.

Mr. Evans wrote in his Twitter feed that he was finishing the script for the sequel to The Raid, “expanding the story and ramping up the action a bit.”

Industry observers said The Raid’s success should raise the international profile of Indonesian cinema. In recent years, a new breed of filmmakers has emerged in Indonesia, bringing in fresh ideas and technical know-how, but they are still struggling to break into the international scene commercially.

“I think The Raid shows that Indonesian cinema is catching up with countries whose film industries are already established. It has put us on the global map,” said Muhammad Abduh Aziz, a film producer who is also the secretary general of Jakarta Arts Council.

Indonesia, a country of 240 million people, produced only 82 films last year, and with only about 660 theater screens nationwide, mostly in big cities, there’s a huge untapped market, Mr. Aziz said.

“In (less developed) eastern Indonesia, cinemas are virtually non-existent,” Mr. Aziz said. “The government should provide incentives for business people to open cinemas and finance film productions and distribution,” he said.

He described Indonesia’s current crop of producers and filmmakers as gamblers who are mainly driven by their passion for movies.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty and risks in making films in Indonesia,” he said.

Now I really want to see Dancing Ghost in the Bathroom.

[GeneChing]

Nothing bumps up martial arts better than a good movie.

Indonesian film may help revive local martial art
By Lenita Sulthani
JAKARTA | Wed Apr 25, 2012 7:52am EDT

(Reuters) - An Indonesian martial arts film with fast fight sequences has smashed domestic box office records and become the first Indonesian flick to break into the U.S. box office, also winning acclaim at international film festivals.

Now the movie's director hopes the film's success will breathe new life into Pencak Silat, the Indonesian martial art it showcases - and one whose followers are dwindling at home.

"The Raid: Redemption" was released worldwide on March 28 and reached number 11 in the U.S. box office at the start of April, drawing an audience of more than 2 million. At home, it has drawn an audience of more than 1 million, a spectacular amount for the local movie industry.

"It's a film that can help promote the idea of people knowing Silat all around the world," said Gareth Evans, a filmmaker from Wales who wrote and directed the movie after falling in love with Pencak Silat several years ago.

"So if through this film there are audience members in the U.S., UK or France, or anywhere else in the world, that suddenly start to learn more about Silat, or people that want to learn to actually be able to perform Silat, then we've done our job."

Pencak Silat has more than 150 variations in style across Indonesia, utilizing hand and foot movements. Evans said he was impressed by the beauty of how Silat athletes move into an attack, as well as the brutality behind it, but its popularity has diminished among younger Indonesians.

The movie, called simply "The Raid" in Indonesia, tells the story of an Indonesian SWAT team sent to capture a crime lord who lives and works in a multi-storey tower block.

It stars Pencak Silat master and former champion Iko Uwais as a police chief and Yayah Ruhiyan, who has served as an international Pencak Silat referee, as a criminal mastermind. The two co-choreographed fight scenes.

Shot in three months with a budget of a million dollars, the movie garnered rave reviews from international critics, including a Midnight Madness award at the Toronto Film Festival, and was showcased at the Sundance Film Festival as well as in Spain, Italy and Dublin.

Critics praised the film for its non-stop action and meticulous choreography, though Evans said he and producer Ario Sagantoro had done nothing innovative and used the same style as Hong Kong action movies from the 1980s. Some 90 percent of the movie was shot indoors.

"That was the only rule, that we wanted to make a film that we wanted to watch. So we weren't thinking 'Oh well, maybe we could do this at the box office, or maybe we can sell to this country and this country,'" Evans said.

"We knew we had to sell internationally, but we had no idea how we would perform, we had no idea how people would respond. Everything that has happened since Toronto has been a bonus."

Evans started directing Asian movies before he left his home country, making "Samurai Monogatari" in 2003 as a film school project. He came to know Pencak Silat while shooting a documentary five years ago.

He and Sagantoro have also made "Merantau," which was popular locally before going to international film festivals.

A graphic novel version of "The Raid" has been launched to capitalize on its popularity, and a second installment is currently in development. It will showcase Pencak Silat again, but in a bigger and more ambitious scale by taking the story to the streets to "blow up Jakarta," said producer Sagantoro.

Fans in Indonesia approved of the movie, which was picked up by Sony Pictures after its original release for local theatres.

"I like the action and the story. This is good for the film industry in Indonesia," said 15-year-old Caca Anisa. "I am proud of it."

[GeneChing]

Remember in my post on Merantau? "...it's really about Iko's choreography. He's the new young turk to watch in martial arts films." I told you.

Delicious ultraVI. The Raid doesn't mess around. Just pure unadulterated action, barely inhibited by the distractions of plot. It's like fight scene porn - absurdly entertaining if you like fight scenes (and who here doesn't?). Iko delivers. It's great to see a Muslim hero. My only criticism is it suffers from some some shaky camera work which either spoils great choreography or covers a multitude of sins. Machete and ratchet fights. Knife fights. Gun fights. Chair fights. Ass kicking from the get go.

See it in the theaters if you can. Support it. It's great to see a subtitled martial arts film do so well theatrically.

Looking forward to Berandal.

[GeneChing]

The last post was the peak of the US distribution according to BoxOfficeMojo. It's down to 126 houses here now. It managed to do $4,004,549 domestically to date Not too shabby. It's still playing in San Jose and Emeryville here in the Bay Area.

The Raid: Gareth Evans Attacks the Block

As The Raid (Redemption) gets ready to continue its international acclaim with a UK release, Impact talks exclusively to action director Gareth Evans about channelling his inner-Peckinpah…

9 May 2012

While it’s undeniable that the Avengers is currently eating up the cinematic spotlight in astonishing box-office, it’s equally clear that the film has merely kick-started what should be one of the biggest action seasons in recent memory. There seems no better way to follow up a mega-budget juggernaut than with a project being equally lauded for its amazing action content but which was done on a considerably smaller budget.

Yet The Raid (aka The Raid: Redemption as it will be known internationally – yet another example of title tweakage this year!) has already generated amazing reviews for its hands-on, gritty, claustrophobic action as a police team work their way through a Jakarta apartment block facing intense confrontations and close-quarter combat with a heavily-armed gangster and his henchmen. Already being called Ong Bak meets Die Hard in western shorthand reviews, The Raid is not just aimed at a genre-specific martial-arts crowd, but an introduction to a more classic, solid alternative to CGI-dominated movies.

In 2009, after almost a decade of producing acclaimed shorts, Welsh-born director Gareth Evans created an impressive industry calling-card with Merantau. The Indonesian film, also starring Iko Uwais, focussed on the martial art of Silat and the film began to pick up great reviews and attention from international festivals. It was inevitable that Evans would be given the opportunity to expand on that cult success. However from an early point, the buzz about his next film, to be released in the UK next week, was growing. Perhaps as an alternative to expected blockbusters, perhaps as just an expert slice of classic action, expectations started to be tweaked.

As it prepared to be screened at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, Evans, himself, was less than confident The Raid would catch fire with critics. He was proud of what they’d made but pragmatic about the competition and nature of film distribution. He needn’t have worried. It quickly became the darling of the festival, with industry papers applauding the raw, confrontational style and the relentless momentum as a breath of fresh air.

“We were looking at the film in post-production, about a week before we went to Toronto and in that last screening we were actually quite pessimistic. We were so ‘into’ the film by that time that ALL we could see were the flaws. We weren’t hating it, but we weren’t sure about it at all. We were hopeful we’d get a decent review… maybe something we could pull something from to put a quote on the poster…No, we could never have anticipated the word of mouth on this and the way it’s gone. Even if we had I think that would have made us the most arrogant people on the planet!” he laughs. “ It has taken us all completely by surprise”

Was it perhaps a case of simply being the right project in the right place at the right time? Evans suggests that whatever technology comes along, audiences will sometimes find themselves yearning for some of the timeless basics of good action and drama.

“My approach to film-making is a little bit old-fashioned in a way. I’m not sure if that’s helped in the sense that audiences may be tired of the ‘new’ style. I wanted to go back a step. I wear my influences on my sleeve. It’s informed heavily by Hong Kong cinema from the 1980 and 1990s, by Sam Peckinpah’s work on The Wild Bunch. It’s just a case of not editing in too flashy a way. I only ever use straight cuts. We aren’t doing those flashy movements with the camera or special effects…” he explains.

“I miss the golden age of Peckinpah and John Woo and Jackie Chan. There’s were action films with… clarity. You could see what was going on, read the action scenes and time was taken to build a sense of rhythm with the shots in fight scenes. The decision on how many bullets were being fired was one made of rhythm and made of a necessity for violence. What feels right? It wasn’t sewn together haphazardly , it was predetermined and planned out,” he continues. “That’s one of the things we brought to The Raid that I think people have most responded to. I don’t think we’re being ground-breaking… I’ve just done the things I learned by watching better film-makers over the years.”

Maybe so, but Evans didn’t make it easy for himself. The very nature of filming the story of a tower-block siege made the environment itself a tricky one to master. This would not be the wide-open environment favoured by gesticulating, graceful martial-artists… this would be close-up, brutal and claustrophobic. The team needed to find the best way to get the audience feeling as if they were trapped in there too, while dealing with the pragmatic side of the basic technology needed to shoot the film.

“Shooting the stuff in the corridor was pretty hard because it was only two metres wide. Our remit was that we were to see everything in the corridor, we don’t hide stuff. Even if we wanted to come around from behind into a profile shot, we still had to see it all. That created some logistical problems we had to fix,” Gareth remembers. “We had to find solutions… such as moving the fighters near a doorway, so that the art department could open/close the door behind the camera as it went by. We could step into the room and get a little more focal distance between the camera and the subject…”

The shoot was a tough one, the conditions already adding to what would be a concise shoot for a n action production.

“From beginning to end the whole film took about two and a half to three months. It was hard. When people make a drama film and get that amount, it sounds like a long time, but when it comes to a martial arts film or action-based film, that’s actually VERY tight. You spend days working on a fight sequence to get a minute’s worth of footage. It’s hard – really difficult. A shot may last three or four seconds’ worth of screen-time, but if you are doing fifteen to twenty takes of it, that’s an hour of shooting…” he notes.

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