The Raid 2’s fight scenes exemplify the sequel's much larger scale over The Raid: Redemption. After the 2012 success of The Raid, writer-director Gareth Evans and leading man Iko Uwais re-united for the 2014 sequel The Raid 2. Reconfigured from an unrealized earlier project of Evans’s called Berandal, The Raid 2 would be heralded right alongside The Raid as an instant action classic.
Far from simply rehashing the action-horror plot and video game movie structure of The Raid, The Raid 2 is a very different sequel with a plot steeped in organized crime. The Raid 2 is also a much longer movie, running 150 minutes to The Raid’s 101 minutes with a much more complex story and larger scope. The martial arts fights of The Raid 2 are highly reflective of this difference with how much bigger the action scenes are.
The Raid 2's Fight Scenes Are In "Bigger Settings Than The Raid's
The Raid 2’s sprawling crime story scope places the majority of its action scenes in wide open spaces, with some of its biggest fight scenes being in prison yards and garages. Sure, The Raid 2 does have some fights in claustrophobic environments like a bathroom stall or the back seat of a speeding car. Nonetheless, The Raid 2’s martial arts battles mostly take place in areas in which the combatants have plenty of room to move, the climactic knife fight between Uwais and Cecep Arif Rahman also unfolding in a wide-open kitchen.
This is a big contrast to the fight scenes of The Raid, which frequently put the characters in hallways or saw them surrounded by multiple opponents at once, often limiting their available space. With the outstanding nature of the action in both of The Raid movies, their different settings serve both well in different ways. The Raid and The Raid 2’s genre disparities help to highlight why that is.
Why The Raid 2's Action Is So Much Bigger Than The Raid's
The entire concept of The Raid placed the SWAT team protagonists in a situation in which they were trapped and forced to fight their way out, which also led The Raid's fights to influence Daredevil and other martial arts-heavy shows and movies. The Raid 2’s crime story takes Rama through a maze of warring Indonesian and Japanese crime families, forcing him to adapt to new situations and environments at every turn. For The Raid 2 being far more elaborate, the environments of the movie's fight scenes follow suit.
With The Raid movies, Gareth Evans proved himself one of the greatest action movie filmmakers of all time. His keen eye for the environment of both films reflecting their respective genres also illuminates his storytelling skills even more. For The Raid 2 to be a bigger scale sequel, Gareth Evans made sure martial arts legend Iko Uwais and his co-stars were battling each other in the right kind of arenas for it.
