043 The Raid: Redemption (2011)

Retro Grade Podcast

“PULLING A TRIGGER IS LIKE ORDERING TAKE OUT.“

Hello listeners! We are BACK from our winter recess with an adrenaline pumping action movie in 2011’s, The Raid: Redemption directed by Gareth Evans. We talked a lot about action movies in our last episode, so we figured we’d kick the new year off with a classic. A martial arts action movie so good, Netflix is currently in the process of making a remake… Yeah.. BUT! Before we get hung up on the concept of remakes, how did a 1 million dollar budget movie from Indonesia, directed by Welshman, became a word-of-mouth hit that introduced Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Yayan Ruhian, and martial art of penchat silat to the world? We talk about all of that on this weeks episode!

We get into what makes this movie a “good action movie.“ At Retro Grade Podcast, we talk about different genres of movies and how they should all be judged accordingly. An action movie needs to make it’s action scenes distinct, come up with fresh choreography that it visually interesting, and use cinematography to capture the action in a way that lets the audience see and feel the hits. The Raid does ALL of that, with meticulously planned fight choreography from Iko and Yayan and the use of a figrig on a small digital camera to capture martial arts in a way not seen before. Before they ever stepped foot on the set, the fight scenes were rehearsed with the camera movements in the gym through a process called previs, which has since become a standard practice of industry leading stunt team: 87eleven.

Before we inevitably watch the remake, how does the original Raid hold up today? Find out what we think on this episode!

Music is from Triune Digital and audio clips pulled from movies we will be reviewing in other episodes.

Artwork by @jannelle_o