Our heroes, Xie Miao and Joe Taslim.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Once every decade some indie studio will scrounge up enough money to afford a brief wide release for a brutal foreign-language martial-arts flick to remind Americans the John Wick series isn’t the be-all-end-all of the genre. The last one I saw on the big screen was 2014’s The Raid 2, so I’m pretending to be an authority here. Such works rarely hit the big screen near us, or if they do, nobody tells me. Not that I watch a lot of them anyway, but at last, another one has broken through that isn’t a Raid sequel!

Judging by US box office tallies, nobody noticed last weekend’s premiere of The Furious, the third work from Kenji Tanigaki as a primary director. He’s a longtime stunt coordinator with a hand in numerous Western movies from Blade II to Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins, who also collaborated with four writers on the six or seven minutes’ worth of scenes that are not fights. For anyone who hoped Mortal Kombat II‘s tournament would be more a visceral thrill-ride but found its sci-fi artificiality a cartoonish letdown, The Furious is here for you.

The Gist: THEY FIGHT! AND FIGHT! AND FIGHT AND FIGHT AND FIGHT! FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT! FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

…

…what. Okay, so technically there’s more to it, barely. Somewhere in Southeast Asia — not showing off my shining ignorance, the intertitle card’s full text is “Somewhere in Southeast Asia” — a crusading journalist (JeeJa Yanin from Hard Target 2) infiltrates a child-trafficking warehouse in search of kids and/or evidence, only to run afoul of evil stuntmen. The good news is she’s a dangerous fighter in her own right; the bad news is she’s outnumbered; the ugly news is she’s the only female martial artist in the movie. After she disappears, enter Joe Taslim (both Raids, Mortal Kombat‘s Sub-Zero) as her forlorn husband Navin, who’s sought her for months in vain. The Southeast Asia Police (seriously, none of their cars or signage names a locale) are of course mostly corrupt and/or useless to him. Sooner or later he shall make someone pay.

Not far away in this same Southeast Asia, a mute handyman with a secret past (Xie Miao, who started as a child actor in Jet Li movies) hangs out with his tween daughter Rainy (Enyou Yang), who’s visiting from the Chinese mainland and doesn’t understand why Dad can’t just come live with her and Grandma, or why he’s disappointed that she isn’t keeping up with her fighting practice back home. When she’s accosted by child-trafficking kidnappers on the prowl for fresh innocents, Dad reveals his secret skill set that has nothing to do with plumbing unless you count rupturing other dudes’ blood vessels. A spectacular roadside gauntlet demonstrates that he shares the phenomenal running power and height of Tom Cruise, and the reflexes and ceaseless mettle of any given Raider. It’s not quite enough to save her right then and end the film in twenty minutes flat, but not for lack of trying. Sooner or later he shall make someone pay.

Eventually at the local Evil Nightclub, Navin and the handyman each raise separate ruckuses at the same time, then observe the time-honored Marvel Comics team-up tradition: Our Heroes meet, pummel each other over a stupid misunderstanding, call time-out, compare notes, and join forces against the Real Enemy. Sooner or later they shall make someone pay. And, y’know, save some innocent kids. But mostly: THERE SHALL BE PAYING.

The familiar faces: The crew are mostly Thai, but the cast hails from multiple Eastern Hemisphere nations. (If a Caucasian sneaked on set, they passed their stealth check and I missed ’em.) To my surprise, I’ve seen a few of our warriors before — most notably the wiry, long-haired, always unnerving Yayan Ruhian from both Raids and the John Wick: Chapter 3 semifinals. This time he’s an evil assassin wielding a mean bow-and-arrow, plus a Hammerfell curved sword whenever anyone gets too close and instantly regrets it.

Arguably the most formidable opponent around is Brian Le (a prominent presence and choreographer for Everything Everywhere All at Once, and the pig-faced lackey in American Born Chinese) as a childlike man-mountain named Ho. He’s an unnaturally nimble, unstoppable force — a lethal cross between Curly Howard and the Kingpin.

Bystanders who can’t take a punch include Sahajak Boonthanakit (one of Alien: Earth‘s Prodigy Corporation armed goons) as a child-trafficking middle-manager in a cowboy hat who wields a mean shotgun with unlimited ammo.

The Impressions: Pretty much like The Raids, The Furious is the sort of nonstop cyclone of a martial-arts flick that ruins mainstream fight scenes for me. It’s hard to take Marvel punch-’em-up seriously once you’ve laid eyes on combatants operating at this level with lightning-quick reflexes, meticulously rehearsed whiplash choreography, a melange of styles and forms, and a camera crew speedy enough to keep up. The deceptively effortless free-for-alls mix it up with painfully tight holds and hugs, up-close flips, rapid-fire punches, one-legged dance-stance pauses, and lots ‘n’ lots of scooting across floors while still punching, kicking, punch-kicking, kick-punching, and so on.

People get slapped around and/or murdered with industrial ice blocks, a mesh fence, a ladder, pretty much anything not nailed down. There’s a climactic death-duel using bicycles as clubs. Infrequent gunfire almost feels like light snacks. And there’s so, so much hammering of all sizes. The handyman wields a mean toolbox hammer; Ho wields a vicious sledgehammer. Together they’d turn Mario and Luigi into plumber’s goop. The audience is nearly exhausted from all the tensions by the time the bell rings on the final battle, which goes on and on and on and on for a good 15-20 minutes, easily. The last men standing are damage sponges who each have 60,000 hit points and might not die even if they were beheaded and both halves were launched into separate suns.

Our two leads make a fantastic team, each vigilante bringing a wealth of experience to the fore as they chase their own goals, only to be faced with a chance to serve the Greater Good once they discover far more victims to rescue than expected. Among their costars, young Ms. Yang is a standout, whose Rainy is no mere crying hostage as she spends her time in the dungeons trying to rally the other captive kids despite their crushed spirits. The evil minions can be repetitive, but keep an eye on Joey Iwanaga (Netflix’s Alice in Borderland, Tanigaki’s Enter the Fat Dragon) as the youngest crime-lord in the room, who bides his time before showing he’s more than an empty-suited nepo-baby.

The handyman’s scrambling for writing implements and surfaces also adds an uncommon challenge, showcasing Xie’s expressiveness to get his points across more clearly than the short sentences he dashes out, which are only slightly less underwritten than everyone else’s spoken dialogue. A surprising amount of the film is performed in non-dubbed English, which may have been their first mistake. One of the most banal scenes has crime-lords bellowing hackneyed threats before suddenly coming to a full stop after thirty seconds, as if Tanigaki gave up and yelled “CUT” but was contractually required to use it anyway. A few impact sounds suffer from oddly goofy foley-FX. And a winding-staircase onslaught with an overwhelming army, which should’ve been a jaw-dropping set-piece, is so cluttered and underlit that it’s one big, noisy, lumpy stew.

Nevertheless: maybe it’s because I see so very few of these that I’m just easily wowed by them every time, or maybe The Furious really is All That. Its relentless barrage of how-did-they-DO-that stunt work held me fast in its iron clutches and wouldn’t let go. I won’t be surprised if there’s a sequel that’ll reveal the handyman’s backstory next time and let him carry an even bigger hammer. Or more hammers. Or more AND bigger hammers.

The end credits? No, there’s no scene after The Furious end credits, but they confirm the scores of stunt people may have outnumbered the VFX artists. We learn the role of “Southeast Asia” was played entirely by Thailand. And one crewperson’s job title is typo’d as “Makeup Aritst Assistant”.