Film

The Raid 2

Name: The Raid 2
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
Released: 2014
Cast: Iko Uwais, Arifin Putra, Tio Pakusadewo, Oka Antara, Alex Abbad

Crime
Martial arts action
Very dark
Relentless

A blood-soaked crime saga that swaps the first film's single-building siege for a sprawling gangland epic spanning years and territories. The fight choreography — kitchen brawls, car chases, a hammer, a baseball bat — is some of the most breathtakingly precise ever filmed. It's long, brutal, and unapologetically operatic. For action purists and anyone who wants to see violence as pure cinematic craft.

TMDb rating

3.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want brutal, choreographed hand-to-hand fights staged with real physical weight, and you don't mind a crime story that sprawls across gangland politics between the punches.

Skip it if you need a lean, tightly paced thriller, since at around two and a half hours much of the middle is slow, talky maneuvering between the bursts of violence.

What it asks of you: It runs long and settles into patient stretches of plotting, then cuts loose with bruising action; you have to sit through the quiet to get the payoff.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Oldboy2003

Park Chan-wook's revenge thriller matches The Raid 2's mix of stylised brutality and genuine tragedy, building to a single-corridor fight that's become as iconic as anything Uwais has done.

But The twist and tone are far darker and more psychological — less pure action, more gut-punch melodrama.

John Wick2014

Same year, same appetite for meticulously choreographed violence, but leaner and colder — gun-fu instead of silat, revenge instead of infiltration.

But More stylish minimalism than the sprawling crime-family plotting you get in The Raid 2.

Kill Bill: Vol. 12003

Tarantino's tribute to the martial arts films that fed into The Raid's DNA — same commitment to fight scenes as showpieces, same total disregard for restraint.

But Cartoonish and referential where The Raid 2 plays its violence straight.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Raid 2

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Act of Killing2012

Both are set in an Indonesia where organised crime and state power blur into each other; this documentary shows the real machinery of violence that The Raid 2 dramatises as spectacle.

A documentary in which real Indonesian death squad leaders re-enact their killings for camera, sometimes as musicals. It's the same country, the same undercurrent of gangsterism as civic institution — but true, and far more unsettling.

But This isn't entertainment in any conventional sense — it's a genuinely disturbing document of real atrocity, and it will sit with you.

The Man from Nowhere2010

A Korean revenge thriller with the same undercover-man-in-too-deep structure and a final act of sustained, brilliantly staged carnage.

But Leans harder into sentimentality with its child-in-peril plot than The Raid 2 ever does.

Infernal Affairs2002

The Hong Kong classic about undercover cops and moles inside crime syndicates — the moral rot at the heart of Rama's mission has its clearest ancestor here.

But Almost no fight choreography — this is tension and paranoia, not physical spectacle.

City of God2002

A crime epic that tracks a sprawling underworld across years with the same appetite for showing how violence calcifies into a way of life.

But Documentary-style grit and no martial arts whatsoever — a completely different rhythm.

Headshot2016

Iko Uwais again, this time as an amnesiac pulled back into a criminal past, with fight scenes choreographed by the same team that built The Raid's.

But A smaller, cheaper production — the ambition and scale don't come close.

Ong-Bak2003

Tony Jaa's breakout film, the one that reignited the world's appetite for practical, bone-crunching martial arts spectacle that The Raid films later perfected.

But Rougher production values and a much simpler, more straightforward revenge plot.

Mad Max: Fury Road2015

Different vehicle, same philosophy — action as continuous, breathless spectacle with barely a pause for exposition.

But Trades hand-to-hand fight craft for vehicular carnage; the DNA is different even if the adrenaline isn't.

Seven Samurai1954

The structural DNA — a man drawn into a code of violence larger than himself, building toward a massive, meticulously staged final battle — runs directly from this film into modern action cinema, The Raid 2 included.

Kurosawa's epic essentially invented the template The Raid 2 runs on — hired men, honour codes, and sustained action climaxes built from patient character work.

But Three hours, black and white, and its violence is comparatively bloodless — a very different pace and texture.

Crank2006

Same relentless, propulsive energy and refusal to let up, but played for absurdist thrills instead of tragedy — the trashy mirror image of the same non-stop-action impulse.

Jason Statham's heart is poisoned and he has to keep his adrenaline up to survive — ninety minutes of gleeful, trashy, breathless mayhem with zero interest in dignity.

But It has none of The Raid 2's craft or discipline — this is junk food, loud and dumb on purpose.