There are fight scenes, and then there are fight scenes that make you want to apologize to your own body for being so lazy. The Raid 2, Gareth Evans’ 2014 sequel to his breakthrough Indonesian action film, contains the latter—a sequence so brutally choreographed, so technically precise, and so physically punishing that it makes other action movies look like they’re playing patty-cake.
The setup is simple: Rama, played by Iko Uwais, is an undercover cop trapped in a prison riot who must fight his way out through two assassins—Hammer Girl, who wields claw hammers with disturbing enthusiasm, and Baseball Bat Man, who uses a metal bat and ball to dispatch enemies with sadistic glee. What follows is approximately five minutes of cinematic carnage that redefined what hand-to-hand combat could look like on screen.
Director Gareth Evans, a Welsh filmmaker who somehow became the world’s foremost authority on Indonesian martial arts cinema, approaches the fight with the patience of a chess master and the intensity of a demolition derby. The sequence begins with Hammer Girl sitting calmly on a subway train, removing her glasses, and preparing her weapons with the methodical care of someone getting ready for afternoon tea, if afternoon tea involved bludgeoning people to death. When Rama boards the train, the fight erupts with the inevitability of physics—two objects occupying the same space, one of which happens to be very good at pencak silat, the other very good at hammer-based trauma.
What elevates this sequence beyond mere violence is the spatial intelligence of the choreography. The subway car becomes a cage, a playground, and a deathtrap all at once. Rama must fight both assassins simultaneously while navigating the narrow aisles, metal poles, and terrified passengers of public transit. Evans keeps the camera fluid but grounded—there are no shaky-cam shortcuts here, no rapid-fire editing to disguise missed hits. Every blow connects with sickening clarity, every block is earned through visible effort, every fall looks like it actually hurt.
Julie Estelle as Hammer Girl and Very Tri Yulisman as Baseball Bat Man deserve special recognition for creating two of the most memorable action villains of the 2010s without speaking a single word of dialogue. Estelle in particular operates with the dead-eyed focus of a shark, her hammer strikes coming in quick, economical arcs that suggest she’s been doing this since childhood. Yulisman brings a jockish swagger to his character, treating murder like a batting practice session.
The fight builds to a crescendo that involves broken bones, improvised weapons, and a level of physical commitment from the performers that borders on masochism. Iko Uwais, who also served as fight choreographer, throws himself into the choreography with the abandon of someone who doesn’t believe in stunt doubles. By the end, you’re not sure whether to applaud the artistry or call a medic.
This is why The Raid 2 remains the standard against which modern action films are measured. While Hollywood spends hundreds of millions on CGI-enhanced spectacle, Evans and his team proved that all you need is a subway car, some gifted martial artists, and the willingness to push human bodies to their absolute limit. The result is action cinema at its most primal and pure.
Experience the brutality—seek out The Raid 2 and witness the fight scene that made hammer sales spike in Indonesia.
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