The interplay between ambition and limitation in Evans’ film is captivating, and he strikes a perfect balance of the two. These are not only his characters’ concerns, but also the self-reflexive concerns of the filmmaker himself. In The Raid 2, Evans concerns himself with ambition and limitation.
As he enters deeper and deeper into the shady Jakarta underworld, he finds that motives are never clear, and the oft-repeated line, “There’s no clear war,” begins to make perfect sense. This time round, Rama must go undercover and infiltrate one of two rival mob families running Jakarta with his end goal to uncover the rampant police corruption in the city. The sequel starts a mere few hours after The Raid concluded, and right from the get go, Evans lives up to, and exceeds, the hype created by the first film, proving he is a genuine talent. Three years later, Evans returns with his sequel, The Raid 2: Berandal(again writing, editing and directing). Essentially videogame-like in structure, The Raid featured minimal dialogue and even less storyline, as Rama (Iko Uwais) and his S.W.A.T team work their way up to the top of an apartment block to arrest a ruthless mobster, one level at a time.
He brought a rare, electrified inventiveness into his claustrophobic apartment block setting, pummelling, punching and exhausting the audience almost to the same extent as the remaining few characters left alive after the film’s ninety-minute assault. Set almost entirely in an apartment block, Evans showed why he was a force to be reckoned with, introducing the high-octane martial art form, pencak silat, to international cinemagoers.
In 2011, Welsh filmmaker Gareth Evans exploded onto the film world’s radar with the balls to the wall action film, The Raid: Redemption.
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