# Osage's Take On...THE RAID 2 (DVD; Sony Pictures Classics)



## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

[img]http://cdn3-www.craveonline.com/assets/uploads/2014/05/The-Raid-2-DVD.jpg[/img]*Releasing/Participating Studio(s): Sony Pictures Classics/Pt. Merantau Films/XYZ Films/Stage 6 Films et al
Disc/Transfer Information: Region 1; 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Rating: R
Running Time: 150 Minutes
Tested Audio Track: English Dolby Digital 5.1
Director: Gareth Evans
Starring Cast: Iko Uwais, Julie Estelle, Yayan Ruhian, Arifin Putra, Oka Antara, Donny Alamsyah

PLOT ANALYSIS:*

Whew. If the last half hour of the unusually long _The Raid 2_ doesn’t get your heart racing, palms sweaty and poised to sit at the very edge of your sofa or easy chair, you’re not a hardcore martial arts cinema fan. The final hand-to-hand combat sequence in this film between the main star played by Iko Uwais and a master assassin with nearly the same amount of power and training as him, played by Cecep Arif Rahman, is as breathtaking as any I’ve seen on screen, and that’s taking into account (and going far beyond) the technique and approach seen in the seminal _Enter the Dragon_. I’m not kidding…this kid Uwais could have given Bruce Lee a run for his money. I caught the first _Raid_ when it first came out on home video, a sleeper of an Indonesian film picked up by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s Sony Pictures Classics arm, after catching all the hyper-hectic action that packed the trailers for the film; while I found it mildly entertaining, the martial arts sequences were ridiculously taut and lightning-quick yet the English language dubbing, made so heavily obvious throughout the length of the film, got annoying after a while. Enter Gareth Evans’ follow up, _The Raid 2_, which brings together some of the same key players – notably Uwais’ “Rama” undercover cop character that can seemingly beat the snot out of any legion of fighters that attempt to rush him, while also continuing the story timeline in a rather linear yet confusing-at-times fashion. However, the action is turned up several notches from the first film – an almost impossible task when you see _The Raid: Redemption_ – and though it takes a while to get there, the final fight between our exhausted and bloodied main character and a sharp weapon-wielding madman equally skilled in martial arts makes it all worth waiting for. That end sequence will leave you mentally and emotionally exhausted as you take in the slashing of skin and tissue, non-stop blows and punches to body parts, roundhouse kicks and other celebrated martial artistry in the attempt of these two characters to kill one another…which proves nearly impossible to do for each of them.

The plots of these Indonesian-sourced “underground crime exploitation set to the backdrop of martial arts” films – that is, _The Raid: Redemption_ and now _The Raid 2_ – are difficult to analyze, interpret or even report on in a review such as this; because of the heavy Indonesian-to-English dubbing and the odd voices chosen to “speak” for the actors conversing in the Indonesian language, there are times you just don’t know what is going on. I’ll try to analyze it as best as possible, but as I said, the best part of the whole experience is waiting for that fight scene between Uwais and Rahman…it’s every bit as breathtaking and exciting as I made it out to be. For those of you who may have seen the first film, you will recall that rookie Jakarta cop Rama (Uwais) had to fight his way out of a building packed with gangsters and madmen, using only his incredible martial arts combat skills – some of which had never been seen by many viewers before – to escape their clutches. Well, Rama thought this life of undercover work and nearly being killed by hundreds of enraged criminals was over and behind him – he couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact, what he experienced that day in that building was going to be a mere walk in the park compared to what he was going to now be facing…a prison packed with even more dangerous madmen he’ll have to fight his way through, keeping a low profile as he infiltrates a crime lord’s family and finally taking on one of the most hardcore assassins he’s ever had to deal with. Because his antics at the building in the first film, as well as his notoriety for being able to wipe out mobs of rioting men at will through martial arts skill, have attracted the attention of much larger criminals up the food chain, Rama is forced to do another job for the police force in order to protect his wife and child (remember, I said all of this gets hazy, foggy and clouded due to the language barrier and the way the story unfolds via the narrative). 

While it’s largely unclear exactly why Rama is once again working for the slimy police in this city, he is asked to take a mission wherein he must first go undercover as a prisoner in a notoriously dangerous prison, the mission there to get in the good graces of a super-corrupt crime boss’ son named “Uco” (Arifin Putra) which will hopefully lead to his being able to infiltrate Uco’s father’s crime family lair. Upon entering the prison, Rama is immediately forced to fight his way through an attacking mob of disgruntled inmates looking for a taste of the “new blood” that has arrived, and of course he dispenses with them in short order. This does indeed attract the attention of Uco, who, after making quasi-threats at the new tough inmate who’s really a cop, in fact does take him under his wing. Once released from the prison, Uco gets Rama (known as “Yuda” to Uco and others in his circles) a job with his hardcore criminal mastermind father “Bangun” (Tio Pakusodewo) but not before the undercover cop must prove he is who he says he is during a stringent strip-search process. Clever enough as he was, Rama managed to get rid of the tracking bug device on him that was feeding his superiors the surveillance information, so he ends up surviving the strip-search ordeal and ultimately working with his new “friend” Uco in the father’s operations.

The ultimate goal here seems to be to have all the criminal organizations in the city pitted against one another so they can be brought down, yet the way we arrive at this gets thick and convoluted after a while; still, at the end of the day, what you have come to see here is good old fashioned butt-kickin’ martial arts scenes that are 100-percent authentic. Gareth Evans decides to rely little on CGI assistance for his sequences, and they’re made all the better for it – all the incredibly visceral punches, kicks, slaps, head cracks and body slams are refreshingly realistic if dragged down a bit by the somewhat shoddy and aforementioned Indonesian-to-English dubbing job on the dialogue stems. Be that as it may, Rama ends up having to meet some ghastly characters from these rival criminal groups as he desperately attempts to keep his cover safe, getting into some hardcore action with more than a few of them including a psycho chick in a white dress that wields dual hammers to cut up her victims named “Alicia” (Julie Estelle) and her sidekick that smashes people with baseballs and bats (Very Tri Yullisman)…but as he breaks through the ring of corruption oozing from these groups and fights his way to the top, he is finally confronted by the one fighter that’s going to give him a run for his money and fight to the death (Cecep Arif Rahman), one of the crime lords’ master assassins.

When these two men confront one another in the back of a restaurant/catering hall facility, a fight of truly epic proportions breaks out – the incredible fighters beat, smash, cut, throw and brutalize one another all over the room to the point they end up incredibly bloodied, swollen, limping and near death. Even when Rama gets the upper hand towards the end of the nearly half-hour-long fight, he has a difficult time killing this incredibly brutal and unnaturally strong assassin even though the guy’s head and face has swollen to the size of a melon from the beating he has taken at Rama’s hands. Honestly, I’ve never seen a martial arts fight sequence so intense, drawn out, bloody and nail-biting in execution before this one in _The Raid 2_…it’s that good. This film takes that end battle sequence in _Enter the Dragon_ to a completely different level; if you thought Lee was an unstoppable machine taking out men left and right before confronting “Han” in his mirror room, wait until you see Iko Uwais and Cecep Arif Rahman duke it out. 

There are some middling elements here that dot the plot elements – Uco’s backstabbing move against his own father for power and revenge, an opening scene meant to tie in with events that take place later on with another gangster named “Bejo” (played by Alex Abbad) and which have something to do with men being executed in a field, an assassin who was loyal to Uco’s father but who is betrayed by Uco in the growing takeover of the crime families (a character named “Prakoso” who is played by Tayan Ruhian) as well as a confusing conclusion that has Uco wanting to kill his friend Rama even though the cop’s cover was never (seemingly) blown. But all of these are window dressing to the martial arts and action on display in _The Raid 2_, which is really what these films are all about. 

[img]http://cdn.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Raid-2-Berandal-Uwais.jpg[/img]*VIDEO QUALITY ANALYSIS: HOW DID THE DISC LOOK?*

I received the standard DVD edition of _The Raid 2_ to review, but the disc looked fine upconverted in my BD player; some sequences were purposely soft and muted in color and detail and there were some compression issues from time to time, but there were scenes equally as stunning and rich with detail when they appeared on the screen. A sequence early on in the prison in which the inmates erupt in a massive fight atop a sea of mud in a rec area was rendered realistically, with the mud, rain and bruised bodies in the battle looking realistic enough. Was there that inherent softness that DVD exhibits especially when compared to the 1080p Blu-ray counterparts? Sure. But this film, in my opinion, didn’t suffer for it at all; certain close-ups of characters’ faces as they met their demise or in other situations came across in a high definition-like fashion, making it difficult – if one was to enter the room when I had those scenes on – to know if it was a DVD or Blu-ray playing. 

All in all, far from a poor transfer on DVD for a film that already had some international-to-U.S. marketing protocols to make its way through. 














[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zF4SoO27Mik/Unpnhf4VFlI/AAAAAAAAClI/a2QIl0G64s0/s1600/the%2Braid%2B2%2Bg.jpg[/img]*AUDIO QUALITY ANALYSIS: HOW DID THE DISC SOUND?*

The Region 1 DVD release of _The Raid 2_ by Sony’s “Pictures Classic” arm comes equipped with an obligatory Dolby Digital 5.1 track when the English language option is selected. As I pointed out in the review, the dubbing was the biggest problem of the film’s sound design. Some of the pieces of dialogue are so apparently looped and uneven it’s a joke; further, the “actors” they selected as English voiceovers for the mostly Indonesian cast were ridiculously miscast in my opinion…I mean, you look at these guys and think _“What? He would NEVER sound like that…” _

That said, the Dolby Digital mix isn’t the most overtly powerful or aggressive, probably stemming from the original source issues we have been discussing. As a result, the track comes across as being a bit low and hushed in overall dynamics and output, but surround activity was surprisingly involving and overtly active. Even the key fight sequences lacked tactile punch and heft in the mix, rendering them a bit less effective in their delivery; in comparison, the Dolby Digital remix Warner Bros. prepared for the Anniversary Special Edition of the _Enter the Dragon_ DVD (which I own) sounded somewhat crisper and more aggressive during Lee’s primary fight sequences. 

Still, this is one that needed to be cranked up a bit higher than usual to really get engrossed in, while suffering from some other minor problems such as sounding as if a blanket were over the audio, lack of tactile punch and somewhat shallow bass. To be fair, this is one that won’t be reached for on the shelf for its audio prowess…you’ll want to take it out and watch it whenever you get the itch to witness actor Iko Uwais’ extreme martial arts abilities. 

















[img]http://cdn.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Raid-2-Reviews-Berandal.jpg[/img] *FINAL THOUGHTS:* 

Even with all my gushings about its fight sequences, I don’t know if _The Raid 2_ is an absolute must-own; there’s so much here – like the first film – that drags it down such as the dubbing issues, the confusion of what exactly is going on between the characters when they’re not fighting and the way it gets tedious after its two-and-a-half-hour run time. Taken alone as an incredible action-esque film coming to America from the lush shores of Asia, it works...but I’m confounded on just how many times I’d actually watch this routinely to own it. As always, your mileage may vary, but I can definitely recommend a rental especially if you are a fan of martial arts pictures.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

Some minor nips and tucks made to review; thank you...


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

did you try it with the Indonesian track at all? I found that the subs made a lot more sense than the English translation when I did my viewing. much easier to follow (besides having to memorize a bazillion Indonesian names) than the English track in my humble opinion


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

Mike Edwards said:


> did you try it with the Indonesian track at all? I found that the subs made a lot more sense than the English translation when I did my viewing. much easier to follow (besides having to memorize a bazillion Indonesian names) than the English track in my humble opinion


No, I actually didn't try it with the Indonesian track; makes sense that the names would seem easier to remember, but I was working off an accompanying press document which provided the cast names and the characters they played. The English translations just seemed funny and off-putting to me, what with their odd choices for voiceovers and the usual strange lip sync issues and dialogue timing...:rolleyesno:


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## asere (Dec 7, 2011)

I just read your review and it's excellent as always. Based on you review the movie seems interesting and even if the story is confusing at times I will definitely enjoy the action.
Hope to see it soon when I get a chance.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

asere said:


> I just read your review and it's excellent as always. Based on you review the movie seems interesting and even if the story is confusing at times I will definitely enjoy the action.
> Hope to see it soon when I get a chance.


the action is NUTS... while the end fight scene was a fantastic "vanity fight" as I like to call it, the rest of the movie is given so much action you start to go cross eyed...


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

asere said:


> I just read your review and it's excellent as always. Based on you review the movie seems interesting and even if the story is confusing at times I will definitely enjoy the action.
> Hope to see it soon when I get a chance.


Thanks for the kind words, asere, and for reading; if you're even remotely into martial arts flicks you'll like this one even just as a rental. :T


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## asere (Dec 7, 2011)

I finally saw the movie and loved it. Action from the start and bloody crazy.
I need to see part one now.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

asere said:


> I finally saw the movie and loved it. Action from the start and bloody crazy.
> I need to see part one now.


haha!, doesn't it make you feel like you've been in a fight yourself at the end? your heart pounding, skin feeling flushed


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## asere (Dec 7, 2011)

Mike Edwards said:


> haha!, doesn't it make you feel like you've been in a fight yourself at the end? your heart pounding, skin feeling flushed


It sure does. I don't think I've seen a martial arts movie with so much blood and violence.
Battle Royale has nothing on this one.


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