As a member of the Jakarta police force, Rama (Iko Uwais) is one of dozens of SWAT agents about to be trapped within the concrete walls of a tenement building run by a nefarious slumlord, set upon by machete-wielding thugs and forced to fight his way out using knives, broken doorways, and at times, only his bare hands. The fighting style he uses to do so, leaving a trail of broken baddies in his wake, is silat -- a lightning-fast, bone-crunching Southeast Asian martial art that gets its best showcase in Gareth Evans? festival sensation The Raid: Redemption.
Welsh-born writer-director Evans didn?t necessarily set out to become the world?s pre-eminent silat action filmmaker, but with his 2009 feature Merantau and now The Raid he?s created a niche for himself while introducing the Western world to the rarely-seen discipline. His fascination with the form began when he was hired to film a documentary about silat, which introduced him to future collaborator, pencak silat practitioner, and Raid star Uwais.
?As a kid I had watched kung fu movies and muy thai movies and karate movies, but I?d never seen silat before,? Evans told Movieline last week at SXSW, where The Raid screened ahead of its March 23 release. ?When I finally got to see silat it knocked me on my ass, and I wanted my friends back home to be able to see it. I was hungry to be able to have a movie that I could take back to the U.K. -- Friday night, a couple of beers, ?Guys, you?ve got to see silat, it looks so fucking cool!??
The Raid isn?t the first silat action film, but few predecessors found an audience on par with the classic Hong Kong action films…
Anna Paquin AnnaLynne McCord Anne Marie Kortright April Scott Arielle Kebbel Ashanti
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