The Raid 2

Gareth Evans wrote Berandal in 2009 as a standalone gangster story, shelved it when the money never arrived, and shot the first Raid instead as a fallback. Once funded, he returned to it, added a police corruption investigation and moved Rama to the centre. That order explains the shape. The first film was one building in near real time; here Rama serves a 2 year prison sentence undercover, and long stretches of the 150 minutes go to bargaining between two crime families rather than fighting. Evans says he multiplied locations deliberately, to avoid fight fatigue. The closing kitchen duel took 1.5 months of planning, 1.5 more of shot design, 197 shots and 10 shooting days, 5 of them consecutive 13 hour sessions. The shoot ran 132 days, 26 over schedule. Yayan Ruhian, Mad Dog in the first film, returns as a different character, Prakoso, and built the choreography. It screened at Sundance and stopped at 6.6 million dollars worldwide, 2.6 million in North America. A good fit if you accept Rama’s prison years and the dynastic haggling as the price of reaching that kitchen. Not for anyone expecting a repeat of the first film’s single location compression, or unwilling to watch close range injury with a hammer and a baseball bat.