Being said, this is the Sundance Edition; extremely brutal and uncut violence. It was amazing to hear how the editing had just finished (on Sunday) only a couple days before the first screening (on Tuesday)for Sundance. The level of expectations of surpassing the Raid: Redemption will not disappoint any action junkies. A barrage of set-action sequences from a muddy prison (uncontrollable chaos) to several people being decimate with the use of a baseball bat and a pair of claw hammers (with close-up gore that can only rival horror movies), a fantastic car chase that might have been the one of the very best choreographed sequence in recent memory and a final fight scene that will leave you breathless from its intensity and insanity.
The plot is of a familiar "storyline", yet there are somber moments from a few characters that help drive the emotional aspect (especially from the main character's quiet reconnection with his family). It does feel a bit choppy in certain scenes but, for a 2 1/2 hr movie, it really does fly on by.
The final fight scene completely out-shined the first Raid. Quite honestly, it really was an edge-of-your-seat moment. As the director explains his reason of making such a movie during a Q&A, (paraphrasing) "I wanted to make a movie that I wanted to see and hopefully there'll be several hundred people who will enjoy it too."
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