A hyper-violent and spectacular action film! On Netflix from October 17, 2024.
The Raid, although directed on Indonesian soil by Welshman Gareth Evans, has demonstrated in its time what local cinematography can achieve in terms of spectacularity and adrenaline in the field of choreography, taking martial arts action films to another level. There are a series of old and new local talents who have given and continue to give their contribution to the cause with films that focus precisely on the aforementioned component. One above all is Timo Tjahjanto, a cult director famous for his acrobatic and very violent action films, who with his new effort behind the camera entitled The Shadow Strays, distributed by Netflix on October 17, 2024, after the preview at the Toronto International Film Festival, has further reiterated the concept.
In The Shadow Stray, the violence reaches peaks of gore and splatter when the choreography is taken over by the ferocity of the director's horror background
Compared to the previous The Big 4, in which action continues to be a main ingredient of the recipe mixed with a decidedly lighter and more playful register, The Shadow Stray marks the filmmaker's return to the graphic and brutal violence of The Night Comes Upon Us and Killers. The violence reaches peaks of gore and splatter when the choreography is taken over by the ferocity of the horror background that the author has frequented on more than one occasion with May the Devil Take You and the episodes he signed to the anthologies V/H/S and The ABCs of Death.
The meeting between these two modes of staging literally explodes in an action film with no holds barred, where the red of every blade that pierces the unfortunate person on duty and of every bullet that hits the target is projected on the surfaces and on the screen leaving indelible marks. What unfolds before our eyes is a hyper-violent show based on crime-action-thriller-revenge-horror, in which martial arts are the fuel that powers the engine, leaving mutilated corpses, severed heads, and hectolitres of blood on the ground.
In short, lovers of strong pleasures, as well as martial arts action, will have plenty to sink their teeth into. This will make them, exactly as it happened to us, remain glued to the sofa at home every time words turn into action: from the one-on-one of the first minutes to those in the apartment, from the break-in and subsequent escape from the club to the fight in the shed in the Cambodian forest, up to the overdose caused by the exhausting showdown in the headquarters.
The spectacular and adrenaline-filled action scenes are the strong point of The Shadow Stray, while the writing is its Achilles heel
The devastating and impactful power of these scenes, amplified by Tjahjanto's direction and Dinda Amanda's editing, which bring to mind the South Korean The Villainess by Byung-gil Jung and the Thai Chocolate by Prachya Pinkaew, become the fulfillment and expression of the protagonist's journey of revenge, here played with convincing and surprising physical presence and involvement by the actress and singer Aurora Ribero.
The revenge we are talking about is the one consumed by the young assassin 13 who, after being removed from her duties following a mission that almost failed, decides to help a boy who has lost his mother at the hands of a criminal organization. When he disappears, the protagonist develops a destructive plan to find him, even if this means betraying her mentor and the organization she works for. A plan that will trigger a chain reaction of events that will lead her to scatter corpses in Jakarta prey to drug dealers, greedy policemen, and corrupt politicians. And it is against this army of criminals that 13 will unleash his blind fury.
The timeline turns out to be excessively long and dilated compared to the real dramaturgical needs
If in the framing The Shadow Stray has a lot to show, it is in the writing that instead reveals its shortcomings. This phase presents the same defects as many previous ones, starting with a plot reduced to the bare bones, where there is room for futile digressions, dialogues that are too elementary, and plots of barely outlined characters. This ultimately results in a timeline that turns out to be excessively long and dilated compared to the real dramaturgical needs.
The Shadow Strays: evaluation and conclusion
With The Shadow Strays, Indonesian director Timo Tjahjanto returns to the graphic and brutal violence of his cult films, exponentially increasing their ferocity with peaks of gore and splatter. The result is spectacular and impactful action scenes, but also quite bloody, which find their maximum expression in the choreography. The direction and editing act as the engine and sounding board for a ballistic and martial show that excites and injects massive doses of adrenaline into the viewer.
It's a shame that all this ends up being the exciting package of a story lacking in content and emotions. The only ones that remain in the end are those arising from the tense moments where facts take the place of words. A round of applause goes to the lead actress, a truly convincing Aurora Ribero in all phases of the timeline, even the weakest ones on a dramatic level.