'The Furious' Review: Some of the Coolest Combat Stunt Work Ever Put to Screen
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By Jack Ransom - July 9, 2026
After Wang Wei's (Miao Xie) daughter (Enyou Yang) is kidnapped by a criminal network, his only ally is Navin (Joe Taslim), a journalist whose wife has mysteriously disappeared. Fuelled by a furious vengeance, the unlikely duo find themselves in an explosive martial-arts showdown against a relentless gang of thugs.
I try to avoid cursing in my reviews, but HOLY SHIT what an absolute blast The Furious was! It started making waves on my social media over the past couple of months and luckily the glorious Prince Charles Cinema was on hand to deliver the goods on a weekday afternoon. If, like me, you are a fan of The Raid, The Night Comes for Us & Kill to name but a few, then I implore you to see this as soon as possible and I guarantee you will not be disappointed.
Is it getting full marks? Yes. However, is it perfect? No. The plot is very generic, there is some clunky cliched dialogue delivered and ropey digital effect-work on display. However, that all being said I haven’t been as locked into a film this year as I was for the 113 minutes of ass-kicking that director Kenji Tanigaki and his incredible cast and crew delivered here. Whilst the plot treads incredibly familiar ground, it immediately gets you instantaneously despising the antagonists and establishing a genuine level of fear, tension and stakes as Wang’s drive to get his daughter back takes centre stage.
Whilst it may dip its toes into Woo-like dramatics and corniness, particularly when it comes to the police involvement and Wang & Wei’s swift bromance (very The Killer - no, not the Fincher one), for the most part this is a dark, seedy, grimy blend of investigation, beatdowns, brawls and outright horror with a grim child trafficking operation backdrop. It whiplashes between absurdly cartoonish mayhem and stomach-churning shock and blunt force trauma to great effect.
The action sequences on display here are nothing short of jaw-dropping and repeatedly had me questioning how a lot of it was even physically possible. It’s vicious, extremely creative (everything from ladders, to bicycles to teeth) and bloody as hell. The grin that spread across my face during the first big set piece was monumental, which sees Wang first encounter the scumbags: full pelt sprinting after their escape truck, getting on said moving truck and beat downing in the trailer, to then barefoot crunching through broken glass and getting hit by a car. The chaotic club fight, a sledgehammer showdown with frozen corpses surrounding the arena, the insane ‘2 vs. 100’ snake pit sequence and the standout third act which has to go down in the history books as one of the all time greats. Just absolutely incredible work from all involved and my God, that split screen goes incredibly hard.
Xie’s mute performance fits his character’s utterly focused, driven and rageful rescue mission and his smaller frame yet menacing, calm presence is perfect. Of course Joe Taslim is established as one of the genre greats (as well as easily being the highlight of 2021’s Mortal Kombat) and his lighter, teamwork and infiltration driven approach to situations is a welcome switch up… but of course he still absolutely dominates the fights too. Enyou Yang has a lot of weighty material to carry for a child performer and she delivers here (as well as getting a few action moments). Brian Le, Yayan Ruhian, Sahajak Boonthanakit and Joey Iwanaga are all suitably twisted villains.
The Furious is a brutal, gory, creative, pacy, staggeringly well choreographed achievement and certainly one of the best martial arts action films I have seen… since well ever. Sure, it’s story and characters aren’t the most in depth or layered, but really if your fixated on that your missing the point and missing focusing on some of the coolest, insane, combat stunt work ever put to screen.
'The Furious' released in UK cinemas on June 26, 2026.
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