Two years ago The Raid exploded out of Indonesia to worldwide acclaim, not just from action fans but also moviegoers less familiar with the genre. For the film’s sequel, The Raid 2: Berandal, director Gareth Evans has ambitiously upped the ante to produce a violence-filled crime saga of much wider scope. Since Evans is one of the most exciting directors working in the genre today, Flicks’ Daniel Rutledge was over the moon to talk to the charming fellow about his epic new film, his attitude towards action movies, and who he wants to see star in the American remake of The Raid (hint, he does awesome kicks).
FLICKS: One thing people love about ‘The Raid’ films is the tremendous clarity of the action. You do it very well and people love the same qualities in Isaac Florentine’s movies. How is it that you’re able to capture action so clearly?
GARETH EVANS: Isaac Florentine is definitely one of the best action directors in the world right now. He’s got a great visual eye for shooting from the right angles to showcase choreography. I’m pretty sure he does the same thing as me, where in pre-production I work with my fighters – specifically I work with them on details of the choreography. Because I want to know what they’re doing, I want to understand the choreography as much as they do. So when they’re trying every movement, every punch, every block, I want to know why they’re doing it. Then when it comes to doing the video storyboarding and the video design of the fight sequence, I know where the focus should be. In the same way as when I’m watching them do fight choreography and I have my head in close to them trying to look and follow the movement with my eye, that’s what I have to do then with the camera later on.
I have to guide the audience so they have the same perspective I had when I was looking at that choreography for the first time. I want people to see everything, I want them to feel everything, I want to maximise their sense of speed, aggression and detail of the action. I think that’s probably what makes us stand out a little bit from other modern action filmmakers; we don’t want to compromise, we don’t want to lose any detail on any piece of the choreography. I’d never shoot one massive wide shot and then jump into coverage, because I don’t want to find my action scene in the edit, I want to find it while I’m designing it, I want it all figured out way in advance.
There are bits of ‘The Raid 2’ where it seems like you’re one-upping things you did in the first film. For example, in ‘The Raid’ there’s the guy getting his head hit into the wall multiple times and breaking the light. In ‘The Raid 2’, you’ve got a guy getting his head hit into, then scrapped down, a wall. Also, one of the first scenes in ‘The Raid’ is the five point-blank pistol executions, and you’ve got something similar in ‘The Raid 2’ that takes things a bit further. Is it a case of one-upping yourself?
It is, but there’s also a lot of theatrical elements I wanted to link. For me it was a case of adding touches that connect The Raid and The Raid 2. So the painting on the wall in the background of Bangun’s office, it’s very similar to a painting we used in the background of an office in the first film. It’s the same as the composers, they wanted to sometimes include little beats and elements from the original score of the first film in The Raid 2. There’s quite a few scenes that are framed similarly to each other across both films. The example of the guy getting his head scraped down the wall, that was clearly, without a doubt a reference to the head tile smash in The Raid. Also in The Raid there was a scene where one of the SWAT team guys played by Joe Taslim pulls a person to the floor and then shoots him three times in the head point-blank. I wanted to up the ante on that in The Raid 2 and that happens in a scene involving a guy on a motorbike, but I won’t give away exactly how.
I can’t wait to see ‘The Raid 3’ and how you double up these things again! The action is fantastic, but another thing you do really well are the little moments before each action scene. They really build anticipation, for example just before that prison fight breaks out when there’s that slow, silent part. How important are those pre-action bits to you?
I think they are very important. It’s all about warming up an audience so they’re ready for something. To me it’s the same as a horror film, where it builds up to a jump-scare. A really well-made horror film will craft those build-up scenes so you feel on-edge watching them, you’re about to explode, and then right at the right moment, it hits you with the scare. In an action film I want to do the same thing, I want to build up the audience’s expectations to breaking point and then explode into an action sequence that is hopefully like a euphoric moment. I want it to be hugely visceral sequence the just lasts for a few seconds like a horror scare will. So in all of The Raid 2‘s fight scenes I’m trying to prolong the excitement for the audience, and also try and reduce anything like fight fatigue.
Probably my favourite blink-and-you-miss-it moment you actually get a glimpse of in one of the trailers. It’s where the guy gets hit by Rama and then his head hits a concrete stairwell, and then bounces off and that and hits a lower concrete stairwell. Now you’ve seen this film probably a couple of hundred times at least, but can you think of like a two second moment you would describe as your favourite?
That one you just mentioned is a personal highlight for me. And it looks a lot worse than it is. The stunt guy still had to fall and make it look as good as it does, but it was really safe with the way we set it up. So I was very happy with that moment, another one would be during of the car scenes. It’s played as if it’s one shot from up above where this car crashes into a wall and then the body flies through the windscreen. With that I was really happy we managed to execute it as well as we did. Obviously we can’t do that for real or we would kill our stunt guy, and I know some people think we do put our stunt guys in danger but any time we find a way to do something with camera tricks and stunt tricks and keep it 100 percent safe, that’s how we’ll do it. So we shot the car crashing into the wall, then cut a hole through the windscreen and in a different shot from the same camera position pulled the stunt guy through that hole. Then we just comped the two shots together. So that was a safe way to do a stunt and it all came together well.
I was lucky enough to see the first film with its original score, and then later with the Mike Shinoda score. I actually preferred the original score. Have you heard that from other people?
Everyone has their own preference for different scores. For me, and I’m not just trying to be diplomatic, but there’s certain tracks I love on the original score and certain tracks I love on the newer one, so a perfect score for me would be a combination of the two. So that was part of the reason why when doing the sequel I was combining the Indonesian composers of the original first film’s score [Aria Prayogi and Fajar Yuskemal ] with American composer Joseph Trapanese, who worked on the American version, The Raid: Redemption‘s score. So then these three guys started to come together and make this music of different styles, Indonesian mixed with American, and I felt it gave it more width and power. Also it meant I didn’t have to piss off the Indonesian composers this time round by re-doing the score again. They’ve created the one and only soundtrack for this film that will play around the world, so it’s great for them.
This is one of a few deleted scenes taken from the film. Reasons to cut were entirely down to pacing issues. This was probably the hardest for me to cut due to the fact that the production on this scene lasted around 6 days of shooting, it cost us a f-ck load to make and it served to escalate the gang war out onto the streets involving people outside of the closed off inter-gang politics.
Enjoy.
– Gareth Evans
The opening line in ‘The Raid 2’ talks about ambition. How meta is that in referring to yourself with this film?
Haha, well, I really… whenever I’m watching the film now and I see that line come up, I’m almost dreading it. When it comes to reviews, that line can either be used in a really positive way, or it can really rip the film apart too. I ask myself now why I started with that line. I actually wouldn’t put a line of dialogue in that was like relating to myself. What I have done that relates to myself is borrowed anecdotal stuff here and there, like in Merantau there’s a bit where Iko’s character is talking about his brother and his relationship with him. That’s pretty much word-for-word the relationship I have with my brother. There’s little things like that that will come into play, but not that line about ambition so much.
You cameo in this film, in the bar scene, right?
No. My DOP has a cameo in the bar scene, he actually has about two or three cameos through the film and yes I do have one myself. My cameo is really hard to find, it’s only a few frames. I don’t know if people will ever see it, but I am in there. Also, Lee Hardcastle, the guy who did an animated cat short based on The Raid, we stuck graffiti of one of his cats up on the wall during the car chase.
I know from Twitter that you’re a fellow Scott Adkins fan. Just lastly, I have to ask, when are we going to see a Gareth Evans film starring Scott Adkins?
I’d love to at some point. We haven’t nailed a particular project down 100 percent, but we do have a few things in mind. I think he’s a super talented fighter, he’s just enormously talented and I think he just needs to have that one breakout role. I hope that will come along soon. I’m on a personal quest to push to get him in The Raid‘s [U.S.] remake, I think he would be great for that. And if then after that we could work on something together, that’d be great. He’s a great fighter and I have met him a few times and he’s a cool guy as well. When you have somebody who has such skills as a fighter, but then they’re also a really nice person to get along with, that’s huge. That’s one of the reasons I love working with Iko as well.
Read more of Daniel Rutledge’s interview with Gareth Evans on the 3 News site
‘The Raid 2: Berandal’ opens Friday March 28. Click for session times and info
