Review: ‘The Furious’ is the best martial arts movie since ‘The Raid’
2026 / Dir. Kenji Tanigaki
Rating: 4.5/5
Watch if you like: action movies, Taken if Liam Neeson had snorted ultra-pure cocaine before making it, understanding what it feels like to have been one of those people who thought Wayfair was trafficking kids because they didn’t get that well-made furniture is actually expensive.
Simply put, The Furious has the best fight choreography I’ve ever seen in a martial arts movie.
Director Kenji Tanigaki has limited experience as a director; this is his third feature, but he spent decades as a Hong Kong action choreographer working closely with Donnie Yen. Those experiences show in the way he crafts one over-the-top sequence after another. Besides the ramped-up speed of his fights, Tanigaki’s signature in The Furious is having multiple people fighting at once, creating elaborate scenarios where bodies are intertwined or used against each other. One moment clearly sticks in my brain as the silent protagonist Wang Wei (Mo Tse) fights two UFC fighters in an octagon ring and then a horde of goons, each one collapsing over each other into a literal hill of beaten foes.
There’s some awkward dubbing at times, likely due to the use of a pan-Asian cast, and one scene with lackluster CGI, but it’s held together by a minimal yet effective story of a father trying to rescue his daughter from child traffickers. He partners with Navin (Joe Taslim, The Raid, Mortal Kombat), a journalist searching for his missing partner, giving the film even more reason to stage elaborate fights between the two heroes. The story in these movies only matters so much as it can get us from one fight to the next, but The Furious gets some extra mileage in the age of the Epstein class by having Tse and Taslim take down rich assholes selling kids after encountering an indifferent legal system in the pocket of the elite.
I found The Furious completely exhilarating, with each fight scene topping the next and showing something I’d never seen before in a martial arts movie. When we reached the climactic two vs. two vs. 1 (you’ll get it when you see it) showdown that starts with a five-way split screen, my theater absolutely erupted in cheers. Besides an incredibly fun theatrical experience, The Furious feels like a sea change moment for action movies: from now on, there’s only before The Furious and after.