There are action movies, and then there are action movies that make you want to apologize to your own body for being so sedentary. The Furious, the latest martial arts spectacle from director Kenji Tanigaki, falls firmly into the second category—a film so relentlessly kinetic, so brutally choreographed, and so committed to practical stunt work that watching it feels like a workout.
The premise is elegantly stripped down: Wang Wei, played by Xie Miao, is a father whose daughter is kidnapped by a criminal network. When the corrupt police refuse to help, he embarks on a rampage through Bangkok’s underworld to find her. His only ally is Navin, a journalist played by Joe Taslim whose wife has also mysteriously disappeared. Together, this unlikely duo fights through an entire city of kidnappers, crime syndicates, and corrupt officials in what the official synopsis calls “an explosive martial arts showdown.”
What separates The Furious from standard revenge thrillers is the pedigree of its action. Tanigaki, a Japanese stuntman turned filmmaker, brings decades of experience from Hong Kong and Japanese cinema to the proceedings. The film features the stunt crew from Everything Everywhere All at Once, which means the people who made a laundromat fight look transcendent are now applying that same inventiveness to a full-scale urban war.
The cast is a martial arts fan’s dream lineup. Xie Miao, who first gained fame as a child actor in The New Legend of Shaolin, has grown into a physical performer capable of carrying an entire film on his shoulders and his fists. Joe Taslim, best known for The Raid and Mortal Kombat, brings the same relentless intensity that made his previous roles so memorable. And in special appearances, Yayan Ruhian and Jija Yanin—both Raid alumni—drop by to remind audiences what real fight choreography looks like.
Tanigaki has been candid about the film’s challenges. The climactic police station sequence took 18 nights to shoot, featuring five men from three different groups fighting with distinct martial arts styles. “They weren’t just performing—they were actually fighting while acting,” Tanigaki explained, noting that the sequence was only possible because the cast is “truly skilled and physically capable.”
This is not CGI-enhanced combat where actors pose while digital doubles do the work. This is the real, exhausting, bone-crunching thing.
The director’s influences reveal his priorities. When asked about his favorite fight scene of all time, he cited Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris in The Way of the Dragon—a sequence where no words are exchanged for nearly ten minutes, yet the fighters communicate entirely through combat.
That same philosophy drives The Furious, where the action tells the story more eloquently than any dialogue could.
The film premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival before playing Fantastic Fest, Sitges, and Beyond Fest, collecting the kind of word-of-mouth that turns festival darlings into cult classics. It currently sits at 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which in the action genre is about as common as a polite YouTube comment section.
Lionsgate is releasing the film in the U.S. on May 29, 2026, positioning it as the summer’s must-see action event for people who think John Wick has gotten too talky. The trailer alone features enough jaw-dropping moments to fuel a dozen lesser films—fights in confined spaces, fights on moving vehicles, fights that involve improvised weapons you didn’t know could be weapons.
What makes The Furious special is its purity. This is not a superhero film with existential stakes. This is not a spy thriller with geopolitical complexity. This is a father trying to save his child, and every punch, kick, and block exists in service of that simple, primal motivation. The action doesn’t distract from the story; it is the story.
In an era where blockbuster action increasingly relies on digital enhancement and rapid-fire editing to obscure the limitations of its performers, The Furious stands as a reminder of what happens when you hire people who can actually fight and let the camera watch them work. Xie Miao and Joe Taslim aren’t pretending to be action heroes. They are action heroes, and the film is their proving ground.
See the action event of the summer—catch The Furious in theaters May 29 and witness martial arts cinema at its most ferocious.
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