The Raid 2: Yeeeah-It’s Violent

Quite a while ago I wrote a brief post that talked about my walk through the top 250 movies on IMDB. Believe it or not, I am still working on that-I just haven’t been incredibly diligent in writing about the movies that I experience. This is a shame, because I have encountered some interesting movies. I am still intending on going back and writing about some of those experiences, but I will start with the most recent one-which I wasn’t absolutely thrilled by, but I did enjoy.

The Raid 2-surprisingly, was on my list. I’m not sure if it is still on the top 250, it’s possible that it ended up on my list because it had been recently released. It is a well made movie, however. But I am surprised that it, not the original-made the cut. I say that despite the fact that I have never seen the original, but I always do a little bit of research about the movie to understand more about what it is I should be appreciating (I am not really an expert at quality cinema, although I’m working on it!). Apparently the original represents a very well-crafted low-budget film by a very enterprising director. Raid 2 had a much larger budget-as can be seen by the high-quality stunts and effects accomplished in the film.

The movie is a Japanese film. The version that I watched had voice-overs, which I am sure many purists would be upset by. I didn’t choose that, but it happened to be the version that I watched. I enjoyed watching the film, but with a type of guilty pleasure-it was incredibly violent. I am not used to that, I fully admit it. Although I enjoy a good war movie, I am not used to movies that portray violence almost purely for the sake of violence. That, I felt, was what Raid 2 represented. Yet, at the same time-the director did a fabulous job of portraying the events that it was difficult not to appreciate the violence in the movie. In a way, the director made violence into a beautiful thing. I don’t know whether to be impressed or disgusted by this, but it certainly is an accomplishment. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this film to anyone, but I cannot help but think about it. There have been a few movies that have stuck with me and I find it difficult to fully stop thinking about after I watch them-I believe this may become one of those.

I don’t know if I will ever watch this movie again, but I am glad I saw it-in a weird sort of way.