Even obvious flaws will likely be treasured by fans of Kenji Tanigaki's slimly plotted but action-crammed kidnapping thriller, which looks on track to become a genre standard-bearer.
By Guy Lodge
Plus IconGuy Lodge
Film Critic
@guylodge See All
XYZ Films A quartet of screenwriters is credited in Kenji Tanigaki‘s “The Furious,” but just a single action choreographer: If you’ve ever doubted the adage that two heads (or indeed four) are better than one, here’s your validation. No one could accuse those scribes of working overtime in devising the barely-there plot and barely-care dialogue for this barn-burning martial arts movie, but said choreographer, Kensuke Sonomura, is considerably better value. An astonishing bloodbath of brute hand-to-hand combat, highly resourceful weaponry and gnarly bodily contortions, “The Furious” is such a feat of mass physical coordination that such niceties as character and narrative can afford to be an afterthought. Here’s a film where you come for the fighting and stay for the fighting, and are unlikely to feel shortchanged.
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