Short Summary is an original series in which I write brief reviews of movies, TV shows, video games, books, and more. Spoiler alert, just in case!

Kevin and I just got around to watching The Raid 2 last night. We both really liked the previous movie, The Raid: Redemption, and we had been wanting to see this movie for a long time.

People, this is a sequel that doesn’t disappoint. The Raid 2 adds so much more to the premise, characters, and overall universe that its predecessor introduced. It has a lot more dialogue, and it actually has a significantly longer runtime by about an hour. But this movie delivers even more action and gore than the first Raid film did. It continues to flesh out existing characters and also brings in new characters to seriously up the ante.

I cannot make this up: two characters are literally credited as “Hammer Girl” and “Baseball Bat Man.” As you can probably imagine, both of them get incredible fight scenes with their weapons of choice, and it is gruesome.

I absolutely love the long takes and choreography of this film. Both of those elements were the core causes of The Raid: Redemption’s popularity in the United States, even though it wasn’t originally in English. Yet much in the way of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and any and all Jackie Chan movies, the subtitles don’t hinder the action one bit. There’s a fight in a kitchen between the main character, Rama, and The Assassin that might just be the best bout of hand-to-hand combat put to film. No edits are necessary. Hardly any shaky cam is required. All of the actors in The Raid 2 know how to fight, and the director can simply follow them with the camera and let them do the rest. It’s amazing to behold and becoming increasingly rare too.

We’re taken further into Jakarta’s deep and dark underworld as Rama has to endure 2 years in prison and go undercover to root out the corruption in one particular crime family. So this time, instead of seeing Rama interacting with fellow police officers and doing whatever it takes to survive, we see him gain the trust of a crime boss and his son, and he has to act more discreetly. It gives The Raid 2 more of a spy thriller feeling in some scenes versus the full-tilt action feeling of The Raid: Redemption. It’s interesting to watch the slow parts of this movie because they don’t even feel that slow. They’re still very engaging.

John Wick and John Wick 2 took so many cues and methods from the Raid films, and those two movies soared in popularity here in the United States for the same reasons. If you enjoy the John Wick trilogy so far, then you need to go back and watch The Raid: Redemption and The Raid 2 to see how it’s truly done.