fter a surge of missing children cases in Southeast Asia goes unsolved by the authorities, investigative journalist Matia Pham (JeeJa Yanin) becomes obsessed with uncovering the dark secrets surrounding their disappearances. When she also suddenly vanishes, her husband Navin (Joe Taslim) takes up the search for her by posing as a dealer to infiltrate a human trafficking ring run by the notorious Mr. Song (Sahajak Boonthanakit). But just as he inches closer to his goal, Wang Wei (Xie Miao), a mute handyman with a mysterious past, an exceptional proficiency in martial arts, and a missing daughter (Yang Enyou) of his own chaotically erupts onto the scene, shaking the crime syndicate all the way to the top.

It wastes no time getting into the action, though it does waste time the longer the movie carries on; with its noticeable runtime, it’s difficult for “The Furious” not to feel repetitive – additionally frustrated by a “Halloween” type of ending in which characters just refuse to die. But long before that, plenty of martial arts skirmishes take place, reminding of the heavy-hitting style of “The Raid: Redemption,” and even “John Wick” here and there. Of course, it also nods to “Taken” with its plot.

It doesn’t need much of a story, since all of those details are merely vehicles to position flying fists against one another, but the human-trafficking angle is undeniably timely. It’s pretty ghastly, too, not just in the suggestions and mentions of torturing and murdering children, but also in the main culprits, who are the wealthy elite, pulling strings to provide kids to be abused by other unspeakably rich people. It may be something of an issue everywhere (this is a Hong Kong production), but it’s easy enough to believe that commentary about moral corruptions in governmental leadership and the ruling class are rightly aimed at the United States in particular. Sadly, the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable appears unendingly relevant. “How can you survive if you’re so scared of everything?”

Ugliness aside (though that carries over into the grimy locations [some containing the unoriginal elements of prostitution, thumping night clubs, and sweaty boxing arenas], the makeup/costuming of grimacing armies of machete-wielding brutes, and the bone-shattering carnage), the film designs some unequivocally sympathetic underdogs – one man looking for his kidnapped daughter, the other searching for his disappeared wife. They’re such straightforward good guys, going into battle against such explicitly irredeemable bad guys, setting the stage for some very furious fighting (they messed with the wrong men); smartly, it’s effortlessly easy to root for them, even when they’re inflicting significant harm on their opponents. The simplicity certainly leaves plenty of room for extreme kung fu.

Unfortunately, when it comes to martial arts extravaganzas, the key is variance. Here, despite a spectacular capstone to a sledgehammer melee, the action sequences rarely stand out from one another. It’s marginally more nasty when a character unveils a hammer or an edged weapon, but the bulk of the hand-to-hand grappling is of the frenzied, fast-paced kind that wows in the moment but leaves fleeting desire to see it again. And with the sheer number of times that characters engage in duels, it’s tough to sort out differences or components of uniqueness. It’s a fun combo to have a careful infiltrator team up with a front-door-busting Rambo (of course, they both end up making a ruckus and wreaking havoc), but that’s only exciting enough to sustain 90-or-so minutes. Here, the third act is a protracted showdown, boasting first-rate choreography (and a touch of disappointing CG) and an awe-inspiring bloodbath, but the adherence to a strict formula of unvaried, extravagant brawling just goes on for too long. Every participant takes beatings beyond belief, collapses from exhaustion and physical traumas, then rises once more to duke it out yet again. Ultimately, it’s a technically proficient genre treat, but it doesn’t surpass the films that it copies.

– The Massie Twins