Brutal, full of blood, great fight scene, and nowhere to be found in other film, including in Hollywood. Maybe that's what we can say about The Raid : Redemption.
Become one the best action film in years by many critics and audience alike surely is a great things. Beat many Hollywood film even with low budget is an amazing job. There is no doubt about it.
Awards
2. Dublin Film Critics Circle Best Film and Audience Award at Jameson Dublin International Film Festival (JDIFF) 2012
In my opinion, Iko Uwais is trademark of all of this success. Great coreograph made by him and Yayan surely is point. Amazing skill on Silat. In 2007, Iko's talent was discovered by Welsh movie director, Gareth Evans who was filming a documentary about Silat in Iko's Silat school. Iko's natural charisma and great camera presence encouraged Evans to cast him as the leading role for his first martial art movie, Merantau. After signing a five year contract with Gareth Evans and his production company, Iko resigned from his daytime job as truck driver of a telcom company.
In his first acting experience in Merantau, Iko played a role of a young Minang (West-Sumateran) male, led him to learn the Minang style Silat Harimau (Sumateran-tiger style) from Silat Master, Edwel Datuk Rajo Gampo Alam. "Merantau" was released in Indonesia on August 6, 2009. The film was featured in Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival in South Korea and South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, Texas with highly positive reviews. Merantau won the Best Film award at ActionFest 2010.
Iko's second collaboration with Gareth Evans is a film called Serbuan Maut (known as "The Raid" internationally), which began filming in mid-March 2011 and set to be released on March 22, 2012 in Australia and New Zealand, March 23, 2012 in Indonesia and North America and May 18, 2012 in the UK.[5] The movie has been hailed by critics and audiences in various festivals as one of the best martial art movies in years. Iko also served as the co-fight choreographer of the movie along with fellow actor/martial artist Yayan Ruhian.
Synopsis
Deep in the heart of Jakarta's slums lies an impenetrable derelict apartment building which became a safe house for the city's most dangerous murderers, killers and gangsters. The rundown apartment block has been considered untouchable to even the police. It all changes when an elite team is tasked with raiding the building in order to take down the notorious crime lord Tama Riyandi who runs it.
Cloaked under the cover of pre-dawn darkness and silence, rookie officer Rama and a 20 man SWAT team, led by Sergeant Jaka, arrive at the apartment block under the guidance of Lieutenant Wahyu. Starting from the ground floor and moving up, they slowly and tactfully infiltrate the apartment block until they reach the sixth floor. The team is spotted by a child and runs off to warn Tama.
Tama hears of the presence and announces to the whole block that he will grant sanctuary to those who kill the SWAT team. Sergeant Jaka soon learns that the mission was not sanctioned by the department but only by Lieutenant Wahyu, thus no reinforcements or rescue. After a lengthy battle the team is stranded on the 6th floor in which they are; outnumbered, out of ammunition and being hunted down. The members that survived the ambush are: Sergeant Jaka, Lieutenant Wahyu, Bowo, Dagu and Rama. After narrowly escaping an explosion, the team split into two groups: Jaka with Wahyu and Dagu on the 5th floor and Rama with Bowo finding safety on the 7th floor.
After Rama survives an attack by a machete gang, he is captured by Andi, Tama's right hand man. At the same time, Jaka and his group are found by Mad Dog, Tama's ruthless henchman. Wahyu and Dagu get away as Mad Dog fights and eventually kills Jaka. Andi is revealed to be Rama's estranged brother who chose to leave the family and left no trace of his whereabouts. Andi lets Rama know when it will be safe as he meets up with Mad Dog. Tama learns of the betrayal and lets Mad Dog take care of Andi.
Rama regroups with Wahyu and Dagu and assault the 15th floor where Tama is located. Rama frees Andi from Mad Dog as they engage in a brutal fight. Wahyu and Dagu approach Tama but Wahyu kills Dagu leaving the two men discussing their position in the criminal underworld. Rama and Andi approach the two, and it is revealed that Tama was supposed to kill Wahyu while Wahyu wanted to do the same to Tama. Wahyu kills Tama and tries committing suicide but fails. Andi calls off the attack and helps Rama, Bowo and the arrested Wahyu out of the block.
Gareth Evans has been fascinated by Indonesian martial art of Silat and as a filmmaker he wanted to promote the little known art to international audience through his movies. Following Merantau, Evans and his producers were working on another Silat movie project called Berandal (eng: delinquent/thugs) , a large scale prison gang movie intended to star not only Merantau stars Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian but also an additional pair of international fight stars. But the project was proven a bit more complex and time consuming than anticipated. After a year and a half they couldn't find enough money to start it. They then decided to find a new idea and make a different movie with all the money they already have. Rather than try to shoot Berandal on a limited budget and lose the scope and size they wanted from it, they would shift focus and tell a different story altogether, one they could make without sacrificing quality and keeping investors happy. Thus a new project called Serbuan Maut (The Raid) was conceived, with much lesser budget and simpler story than Berandal.
The pre-production process took about four months, including finalization of the script and the work on the choreography for fighting sequence which was designed by Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian. Actors that make up the key members of the SWAT team were sent to bootcamp military training with KOPASKA, going through intensive course to learn the basics of weapons use, strategic attacks and defense techniques.
Reception
Reviews for The Raid: Redemption have been highly positive. Based on 82 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently holds a 85% fresh rating, and an average score of 7.6/10. The website reported the critical consensus as "No frills and all thrills," and lauded the film as "inventive action film expertly paced and edited for maximum entertainment." Conversely, Roger Ebert gave the film a single star out of four, noting that "Welsh director, Gareth Evans, knows there's a fanboy audience for his formula, in which special effects amp up the mayhem in senseless carnage". In IMDB, this movie had a 7th place in "most popular action feature films" with 8.4 rating.
Music
While the film was still in production, in May 2011, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions acquired the distribution rights of the film for the US and tasked Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park and Joseph Trapanese to create a new score for US market.
The film premiered its international screening at TIFF 2011 Toronto with original score from the Indonesian version which was composed by Aria Prayogi and Fajar Yuskemal, who also composied Evan's previous film, Merantau. The Raid made its debut in the US with Trapanese and Shinoda's version at Sundance 2012.
