The Shadow Strays

Agent Thirteen is suspended for disobeying an order on a mission and sent to rest. In the building where she stays there is a small boy next door; when his mother is killed by a criminal organisation he becomes a target too. She goes into the organisation alone. Her own agency treats this as a breach and sends her mentor after her. The subject is not action but a young woman realising that the only skill she was taught is killing. The film does not draw her as a saviour; the method she reaches for in order to help is the problem itself. The form is long and violent. It runs close to two hours forty and the fights are built in unbroken takes; the corridor, kitchen and car park sequences are its most ambitious. The gore is deliberately excessive. It is Timo Tjahjanto's Netflix production and continues the recent line of Indonesian action cinema. The fight choreography was worked out over a long preparation and most of the cast perform their own sequences. Aurora Ribero plays the agent and Hana Malasan her mentor. Who it is for: viewers who like hard martial arts cinema and Indonesian action. Who it is not for: anyone with no tolerance for violence, or who will tire of the length; the film is long and the pace drops in its final stretch.