As I watch The Furious I was expecting a typical action movie, and honestly, I wasn't expecting much beyond the usual fighting, chasing and revenge. But the movie surprised me in one way, underneath all the violence, was a father who simply wanted his daughter back.
Wang Wei wasn't presented as some unstoppable superhero. He was a father who had his child taken away from him, and that alone was enough to push him into a world of violence he probably never wanted to enter.
The fact that he was mute made his character even more interesting to me. He couldn't stand around explaining his feelings or giving emotional speeches. You had to read everything from his face and the way he reacted whenever his daughter came up. His anger was mostly quiet, but you could feel it. And once he started fighting, well... things got crazy.
The fight scenes were easily my favourite part of the movie. There were times when I caught myself thinking, How is this man still standing? He got beaten, thrown around and surrounded by several people, yet somehow he kept finding a way to get back up.
The action didn't feel like it was there just to fill time either. Most of the fights had a purpose. Wang Wei wasn't fighting because he wanted to prove he was the strongest person in the room. He was fighting because somewhere ahead of him was his daughter. That made the violence easier to understand.
Another character I enjoyed was Navin(Joe Taslim), his wife had also disappeared while trying to uncover the same criminal operation. So when his path crossed with Wang Wei's, it didn't feel like two random action heroes suddenly teaming up. They were both chasing someone they loved.
Their situations were different, but the pain was pretty much the same. I think that's what kept me interested whenever the movie wasn't fighting.
The story dealt with something genuinely disturbing: human trafficking and the people who make money from the suffering of others. The villains were easy to dislike, and I didn't find myself feeling sorry for them when things started going badly for them. That said, I wouldn't say The Furious had a perfect story.
There were moments where I wished the movie had spent more time developing some of the characters. Wang Wei's relationship with his daughter could have been explored more because that emotional connection was actually one of the strongest things about the story.
But then again, The Furious wasn't pretending to be a slow, complicated drama. It knew what it wanted to give us. Fights. Lots and lots of fights and those fights delivered. Some of them were so intense that I almost forgot about the plot for a while. The choreography was brutal, fast and creative, with the characters using whatever was around them. Nothing felt completely safe. A wall, a chair, a piece of furniture pretty much anything could suddenly become part of the fight.
By the time the movie was coming to an end, I was less interested in figuring out whether every part of the story made perfect sense. I just wanted to know if Wang Wei would finally find his daughter and whether he would survive the journey. For me, that's where The Furious worked best.
It wasn't perfect, and I wouldn't call it the deepest action movie I've ever watched. But it was entertaining, emotional in its own way, and the action was definitely worth watching. Sometimes you don't need a complicated story. Sometimes you just need a father who refuses to stop looking for his child.
My Rating:85/100
Rating: 85/100