The Raid 2 is currently playing at Sundance, and now there’s a new trailer to try to really amplify the buzz. As star Iko Uwais’ Rama goes undercover, Gareth Evans’ follow-up to his widely-acclaimed Indonesian bad guys-in-a-high-rise punch fest takes the action to more varied terrain this time around, including a kitchen, a car, a prison yard, a highway, and a couple warehouses. Not surprisingly, the trailer is full of hard-boiled posturing, punching, kicking, car crashing, and improvised weapons. And surprisingly, more butt stabbings than a Libyan snuff video. Is that a Muslim thing? I don’t want to stereotype here, but I’m dealing with a pretty small sample size when it comes to butt-stabbing videos.
Part of the appeal of “The Raid” was how it featured the Indonesian martial art of pencak silat, which had been largely unseen by Western audiences previous to this. In the sequel, Evans is once again working with pencak silat experts Iko Uwais — who stars as the lead character Rama — and fight choreographer Yayan Ruhian. Evans told us that his core team spends three months in preparation for the stunt scenes. Evans said they work out “every element, every location and prop and what we need,” and then shoot “video storyboards” to plan out all the shots. Then after casting their actors, they spend another three months in rehearsals to have each punch, kick, and flip perfected before the cameras even roll. [YahooMovies]
I’d very much like to see someone storyboard a butt stabbing. Maybe it’ll be in the DVD extras.
Opens March 28th, in limited release.