As you know by now, I believe that Gareth Evan‘s first Raid movie, is one of the most epic and masterful films of martial arts that I’ve ever seen. He decided that he was going to top himself in the sequel, The Raid 2: Berandal, and by the looks of this trailer below, he’s going to.

The director talks about how much he actually revealed in this trailer.

[box_light]gareth evans sundanceGareth Evans ‏@ghuwevans trailer is 2m 35s and with the exception of 1 shot it’s all new footage from the teaser. Only spoilers for Act 1 setup.
Naturally, there’s a ton of stuff we have kept hidden from the trailer. About 4/5 action scenes don’t feature at all.
Also wanted to put less emphasis on the brutality – this is the closest I could get to a green band version.
the final shot is a tease – that fight I still get goosebumps watching it. Iko and Cecep gave everything they had for it.[/box_light]

He also talked about where this film and it’s sequel will take place on the timeline of the trilogy.

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The Raid 2 takes place 2hrs after the first, The Raid 3 would start 2hrs before The Raid 2 ends.

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The film is going to play at Sundance, Evans is still hard at work on the VFX and it’ll be a bit longer before we see the film’s theatrical release:

[box_light]We spent 1.5months just designing the final fight. That’s the most complex we have done so far. Another 3-4 weeks on pre vis
Still a lot of work to do. New Years VFX
Happy New Year from me and the VFX team! At least we can hear the fireworks :) http://twitpic.com/dqpzl2 [/box_light]

Here’s the synopsis:

[box_light]Written and directed by Gareth Evans, THE RAID 2 picks up right where the first film left off and follows Rama (Iko Uwais) as he goes undercover and infiltrates the ranks of a ruthless Jakarta crime syndicate in order to protect his family and uncover the corruption in his own police force.[/box_light]

The film is due out next year and stars: Iko Uwais, Tio Pakusadewo, Putra Arifin Scheunamann, Julie Estelle, Alex Abbad, Roy Marten, Matsuda Ryuhei, Endo Kenichi, and Kitamura Kazukiall.

~Chaz

the-raid-2- iko uwais close up