Movie Snippet: The Raid

The Raid: Redemption (2011): Thumbs Up.

This Indonesian tower battler has the brutal intensity that today's Hollywood lacks. Reminiscent of a zombie flick, the hordes just keep on coming, while the squad keeps on dishing. Starting off with automatic rifle battles with a bit of bullet time, it pares itself down to pistols and knives and finally finishes with some crazy Indonesian martial arts action.

Sure the script isn't as polished as it could be (it might as well not exist), but when was the last time you saw a 5'4ish dude take on two guys barefisted with a pipe jammed into his neck? This movie is just full of insane 'omg-did-they-just-do-that' moments and all action fans should definitely give this one a try.

Aside: after watching Jet Li's Kiss of the Dragon some 10 years ago, which also featured some pretty hardcore fight sequences, I wanted to see a Jet Li movie where all he did was fight guys back-to-back-to-back with no pretense of a story. This movie is about as close as I've finally found in a decade.