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The Furious Review: Who Needs A Plot When Fists And Legs Fly Like This?

Slashes, bashes, and perhaps the most innovative action choreography you'll ever see, The Furious is indeed fast, furious, but leaves you curious about whether you were invested in the story or not.

Published: Tuesday,Jun 16, 2026 15:48 PM GMT+05:30

Kunal Kothari

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The Furious

In theaters, Friday, 19th June 2026

Cast: Mo Tse, Joe Taslim, Brian Le, Joey Iwanaga, Yang Enyou and more

Directed by: Kenji Tanigaki

Rating - **** (4/5)

Apart from the lazy title that is The Furious for international audiences, there's absolutely nothing lazy about this relentless action fest. Imagine going into a movie with a jaw-dropping action set piece in the first five minutes which immediately catches you off guard in the best way possible. Slashes, bashes, and perhaps the most innovative action choreography you'll ever see, The Furious is indeed fast, furious, but leaves you curious about whether you were invested in the story or not.

That's where the film falters a bit. Essentially, it's two storylines meeting each other because the enemy is common here. There's a Chinese mute guy, Wang Wei, who loves his daughter over and above anything else and, as you would anticipate, his beast mode is unleashed when she gets kidnapped in what's an exhilarating sequence itself.

Parallelly, there's Navin (no, he isn't Indian) who has gone undercover and become a part of the bad guys in an attempt to locate his missing journalist wife who herself was trapped by the aforementioned bad guys because she was trying to bust them. The common enemy is a huge child trafficking racket run by a few biggies, one of whom is a young married ghar jamai of an influential figure. Madness embroils, and how, as the relentless pursuit and cat-and-mouse chase goes on, and we are presented with almost no time to breathe through action galore.

Story? What Story?

The story here is rather generic. I mean, we have had three Mardaani films here in Bollywood working with this, and countless Crime Patrol episodes too, but perhaps it doesn't matter. Because while the story doesn't necessarily invest you as much, the action does, and how! In a 1 hour 53 minute movie, we possibly have an hour of action sequences, including a 15 to 20 minute continuous action sequence in the climax. But does it get too much? Is there a sense of fatigue? Absolutely not.

Action That Refuses To Sit Still

A still from The Furious (Source: Lionsgate)

Because while the story might be generic and done so many times, the action absolutely isn't. You might or might not have seen a gazillion action movies out there, even martial arts ones, but director Kenji Tanigaki and action director Kensuke Sonomura design some of the most original, unique, relentless, adrenaline-fuelling, non-stop, exhilarating, balls-to-the-walls action pieces you'll ever see. It's bananas to think that just when you believe you have seen it all with action and its innovation, there's always someone out there wanting to prove you wrong, and Tanigaki and Sonomura do exactly that.

Not only is the action here all the aforementioned adjectives, but it's raw, brutal, gory and will have you gasping at moments, and sometimes even raising your heart rate. So make sure your smart watches don't have an indicator that beeps when your heart rate is high or else you might end up disturbing someone sitting next to you in a cinema hall.

Logic Takes A Backseat

As is the case with so many actioners out there, you don't ask too many questions and logic isn't a topic of conversation either. But what The Furious carefully walks is the thin line between asking you to suspend your disbelief and also staying believably believable (which isn't actually a thing, but you get it).

There are moments where you might chuckle and wonder what the hell that was, but you don't have much time to dwell on it because you're instantly thrown into another second of action madness and are now occupied by that.

The Camera Never Misses A Beat

The performances are top-notch in general and just the way the actors are able to understand the brief here and pull off these seamless action pieces, which isn't even action but a dance, a dance of combat moves that flows with the fluidity of a ballet performance.

Special shoutout to cinematographer Meteor Chung for being able to capture the action in ways you might think aren't even logistically possible. I mean, imagine shooting with cameras and lighting in a tight room where two people are doing slick action in that confined space and not having any room for error. It's stupendous.

Seldom do action movies these days get made that seem like a breath of fresh air while entertaining you to the T. The Furious is exactly that and, if not for anything else, just go and watch it in a theatre near you this Friday onwards to witness how action can be so unique and madly entertaining.

TL;DR

The Furious lives up to its name and then some. While the story about child trafficking and revenge feels familiar, the action is anything but. With relentless fight sequences, jaw-dropping choreography, brutal combat and a climactic stretch that barely lets you breathe, this is action cinema operating at peak insanity. Watch it on the big screen and thank yourself later.