With its brutal hard-hitting fight scenes and simple yet effective narrative, the Indonesian action flick The Raid made quite a splash when it was released a couple of years back. Simultaneously putting Indonesian cinema back on the map and making director Gareth Evans a name to keep a close eye on, the film was a relentless and exhausting tour de force that resonated strongly with Western audiences. So given its resounding success, Evans quickly announced that he would be following up the film with two sequels. It was hard to imagine where the series would head following the single-setting of the original, however the newly released trailer for the Raid 2: Berandal provides a rough overview of what we can expect.
Gone are the grimy walls of that familiar rundown building crawling with creeps and goons, in its place a sizable prison, which our hero Rama (Iko Uwais) looks to be heading undercover to infiltrate. But the trailer indicates that this won’t be the sole location of the inevitable carnage. In fact The Raid 2 seems to have more in common with a gritty crime thriller than a straight up martial arts kick-fest. The tense fights are certainly still in place; however the grander scope of the film seemingly indicates that we’re in for a much broader plot than that of the original. Plus it looks like we’ll be getting some intense showdowns taking place in a wider variety of locations, such as on trains and in public streets. The Raid still stands as one of my favorite action films of the last decade, so I’m itching to feel broken and exhausted by this sequel once it finally kicks its way into cinemas.
Watch the trailer below.
The Raid 2 kicks its way into a limited U.S. release on March 28, 2014.