The Furious is out in theaters this weekend and looks like it’s going to deliver tons of violent, over-the-top martial arts action. If you’re looking for some movies to get into the proper mindset, or to keep up the action after seeing The Furious, here are five more awesomely brutal martial arts movies to check out.
Revenger (2018): Bruce Khan wrote and stars in this bloody revenge movie as Yool. A police detective, Yool looks to take out crime boss Carlos Kun (Park Hee-soon) to avenge his family’s death, but both men end up getting arrested and sent to the brutal island prison of Sura. Yool has to fight his way through hordes of violent inmates, many of whom he personally arrested, to get another shot at Kun and get his revenge. You can watch Revenger on Netflix.
Bangkok Knockout (2010): One of the final films directed by Panna Rittikrai, who directed Ong-Bak 2 and Ong-Bak 3 and served as the fight coordinator on The Protector and Chocolate, Bangkok Knockout is a truly insane display of martial arts action and stunt work. A group of Thai martial arts students wins a contest to appear in a Hollywood film. Celebrating, the group is drugged and wakes up to find some of them have been kidnapped, and a group of assassins is after them. From a car driving through a group of fighters to leaping to dangerously high scaffolding to hanging off a high-speed truck, the stunts in Bangkok Knockout are on a whole other level, and that’s on top of the incredibly choreographed fight scenes, which feature fighters with different styles, like capoeira and tai chi, along with muay thai. You can rent Bangkok Knockout from places like Amazon, Fandango, and Apple TV.
Headshot (2016): Following The Raid movies, Iko Uwais cemented himself as a martial arts action superstar with Headshot. Uwais plays Abdi, an enforcer for the brutal crime boss Lee (Sunny Pang). After he’s shot in the head, he wakes up with no memory of who he was, cared for by Dr. Ailin (Chelsea Islan), who calls him Ishmael as she’s reading Moby Dick. When Lee’s other enforcers learn that Abdi is alive, they seek him out, and his lethal skills reawaken to defend himself and Dr. Ailin. The movie was written and directed by The Mo Brothers, aka Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel. You can watch Headshot on Netflix.
The Night Comes For Us (2018): Going solo from The Mo Brothers, Timo Tjahjanto delivered the absurdly violent (and awesome) The Night Comes for Us in 2018, which stands toe to toe with movies like The Raid films. Joe Taslim plays Ito, a member of the “Six Seas,” which is an elite group of enforcers for the Triads. When he leads an assault on a village that was believed to have stolen drugs from the Triads, he discovers a young girl named Reina as one of the survivors and decides to go against the crime syndicate and protect her. This makes him a target for the other members of the Six Seas and the Triads, who seek to kill him for his betrayal. Iko Uwais, in a twist, plays the main villain, Arian, who is looking to kill Ito to take his place as a new member of the Six Seas. The fight scenes throughout are stunning, and the final fight between Uwais and Taslim may be the most brutal in the history of martial arts cinema. You can watch it on Netflix.
The Shadow Strays (2024): Another Timo joint, The Shadow Strays isn’t quite at the same level as The Night Comes for Us , but it still features tons of incredible action and a breakout performance from Aurora Ribero. Ribero plays 13, an assassin known as a Shadow (basically a ninja). While on a job in Japan, she manages to kill her target, but an innocent bystander gets caught in the crossfire, so 13 is sidelined in Jakarta until she can get psychological retraining. While suspended, she befriends a young boy, Monji (Ali Fikri), and gets drawn into a battle against the local crime bosses and, eventually, the other Shadows, including her mentor, Umbra (Hana Malasan). While it could probably have been streamlined a bit, the action sequences and fights are definitely worth checking out the movie for. You can watch it on Netflix.
