My first thought when I saw this one released: New Iko Uwais movie? Must see!
And boy did I get more and more disappointed the longer the movie went on. "The Raid" was a good example of really good mass fight choreography where 20 vs. 1 didn't mean 19 people waiting and it actually being twenty 1 on 1 fights. This movie is the PERFECT example of twenty opponents awaiting their turn to get slaughtered. There is not a lot of finesse, this movie is all about gore and maximum brutallity, leaving the "good" guys shredded to pieces and continue fighting in an absolutely unbeliebavble state of injury.
If you are able to COMPLETELY suspend ANY disbelief, your totally fine with oponents in fight scenes doing the pause after one move until the good guy destroys them routine, mass fights with bad guys attack one after another, and don't need any kind of story when it's a good gorefest, then this is for you.
That said... Purely as a gorefest it is fantastic! Blood and guts everywhere, bodyparts are getting cut off, places get totally trashed, tons of broken bones in almost every scene, more cuts and slices than in any butcher shop - oh wait, except for the butcher shop scene in this one :) - and did I mention BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD?
For the artistic and imaginative gorefest it is, I gave it 5 stars
Alas I expected more of a martial arts movie featuring Iko Uwais having seen his other movies with way better and more believable choreography, so this was a huge disappointment for me. And for my taste they were trying so very much too hard to make this look and feel like one of the classic heroic bloodshed movies John Woo did in his earlier career, going waaay over the top with it, there were moments I felt a bit digusted at that.
Bottom line:
Great for gorelovers, painful if suspension of disbelief doesn't come easy for you, so and so for martial arts fans.
