 Oh, that kicks ass! So after doing my headshot review, I said I wanted to review the Raid series, and the Raid movies are some of my favorite martial arts films in recent years, if not almost of all time. The first one was actually a kind of a hidden feature for me. I remember going to the movie theaters in 2011, if I'm correct, 2012, and seeing this big poster, this big cutout poster of a guy standing in front of a building, this big apartment block, and for some reason it gave me a little bit of a diehard edge. I didn't see it in theaters, but then after that I heard from word of mouth and just on the internet that the Raid was a movie you wanted to see. So the incident came out on DVD, I went and rented it, and holy shit, I was blown away. The movie starts off kind of generically, in the sense that there's a guy who's kind of training, he's saying goodbye to his wife, he tells his father, I'm gonna go get him back. We then cut to a military truck full of a bunch of SWAT guys, and they're kind of getting the breathe on a mission. Some of them are cocky, some of them are kind of quiet, some of them are afraid of what's going on, but what the main idea is that they're going after this mob boss that is at the top of this apartment block. He owns everyone inside, most of the people inside are criminals, but not as all as it seems. They meet up with this kind of shady police sergeant at the building, and then they go in and everything goes wrong. From the instant that they are discovered, absolute carnage happens. And some of the most ridiculous machine gun fire I've ever seen, where M16s seem to have unlimited rounds, and people are taking a million bullets and sometimes not even flinching from it. The funny thing is that everyone was telling me that this was a martial arts movie, and I'm about 35 minutes in, and there's nothing. And then comes the first hallway scene, where Iko Uyua, the main character who's played Rama, is carrying Baolo or whatever his name is, and then shits gets real with some amazing choreography, with using weapons to using freehand. The first hallway scene, I was going holy shit throughout the whole movie. The instant I finished it, I called my brother and said, you have to watch this with me. And I watched it again the same day. The film then turns into a cat and mouse game, where in fact, it is almost the opposite of Die Hard. In the sense that Rama and his crew are slowly getting picked off while trying to get to the top of the tower, taking out the bad guys, and it's sort of an even playing field, except if you're facing Rama, then you're fucked. There are interesting moments like when they're hiding in the crawl space and the machete goes through the wall and slices Rama's face, and the intricate shots of that and how tension-filled that scene is. Gareth Evans is a fantastic cinematographer. He knows exactly what to shoot, how to shoot it, and how to edit it. He edits his own movies, usually, and everything works so well in this film. It reminds me of what Robert Rodriguez used to be in the sense that he was a guy who did everything on the job, and Gareth Evans is the same guy. He shoots these fight scenes incredibly well. He doesn't go for the shaky cam shit. He keeps everything in focus. He does really good cuts. He can even take the action away and still keep you thrilled and excited for when it comes back. And funny enough, there's only five fight scenes in this film. I was talking about doing the top five fight scenes of the raid, and in fact, that's all there is. There are five fight scenes in this whole movie, and you wouldn't think it until you actually counted them because of how awesome they are. Admittedly, the story isn't as fulfilled as you would think it is. The potential between Rama and his brother is pretty decent, but there's a little bit more you would have wished from that. Also, some of the fight scenes kind of happened just for the sake of fight scenes, and the conclusion isn't as cut as you would think it is because they do a name drop of someone you had no idea who he was, and this name only matters if you watch the sequel, which is a little bit of a kind of an unfair advantage for people who haven't seen the sequel or for people who had just watched the first movie because that's a little bit of important information that you could have explained a little bit more as we find out when the corrupt cop and the head of the building guy are having their arguments. But either way, this still is an action-packed movie. There's a little bit more emotionality than you would expect of a martial arts film like that, and this film paved the way for, in my opinion, the best one of the series, which was the sequel, which is one of my favorite films of all time. So in the end, I will give The Raid Redemption a 5 out of 7. It is a fun movie. It is an action-packed thrill ride. If you guys are fans of martial arts films or kind of Indonesian foreign action films, you should watch this. It is good because while the fight scenes aren't quite extravagant, they are somewhat limited into reality, not entirely, especially with the end fight scene with the dog. That fight scene is ridiculous. It goes on forever, but it's still a fun time. So as I said, I'll do a top five fight scenes of this movie. It's not very hard because there's only five, and then I will review and do the same for The Raid 2. That one will be difficult because that movie has a shit ton of fight scenes. All sorts of probably show you the case that this came in. This is the case for The Raid Redemption. It's pretty awesome. It's part of Art Gallery 1988, so Project Pop Art. There was a few that came out. I think when this came out, there was a bunch of other movies, Drive, Snatch, Leon, The Professional Drive, District 9. I got a few of them, and so did my brother, but I don't know if you can still find these. These were available from Future Shop. So Future Shop doesn't exist anymore for us, so I don't know. See if you can find them. The website is gallery1988.com, so if you guys are interested in that, check it out. These are awesome cases. Alright guys, see you next time.