We’re two days away from getting smashed in the face/hands/back/chest with the theatrical release of Gareth Evans’ action-deluged sequel The Raid 2, and Sony Pictures Classics has unleashed a clip from the film that is certain to drive you up the wall and back with vehicular fisticuffs. And if that’s not enough, we also have a five-minute long deleted scene that features just as much action (if not more) than everything in theaters right now. Suck it, 300: Rise of an Empire.
We’ve been waiting to see this entire car-centered sequence since The Raid 2’s first images were released, and thankfully only the first piece of it is seen here. But it’s more than enough to make me want to break out a Sega Genesis and start playing Road Rash games until my thumbs bleed.
In the clip, via Yahoo! Movies, our lead character Rama (Iko Uwais) is being driven somewhere by men who lack both virtue and the precognitive skills to realize they’re about to become punching bags. But it’s not only the four-on-one fight going on in this scene, as we also get to see a bit of car pong between Andi (Donny Alamsyah) and the two men trying to drive him off the road. He gets the better of them though and sends one careening into a building that collapses on top of the car. That very last second of the clip is probably the only time during The Raid 2 that nothing is moving.
But now let’s move on to this fucking amazing scene that you won’t be seeing in the final film. It seems antithetical to promote footage that audiences don’t get to see, but this vid has me even more amped up for the movie, so its success is unquestionable. While I’m not sure where it fit into the narrative’s context, it could certainly stand alone as a feature short.
The bodies fall like snowflakes, with no one injury the same as anyone else’s. Any newcomer action directors should use this clip as a blueprint for how to give audiences uncontrollable urges to start water gun wars inside empty buildings. So if this is the kind of footage that was deemed unusable in the final product, I cannot wait to see what actually made it in there. (Our own Sean saw it and raved about it.)
Get your battle face ready to superman punch your way into theaters on March 28, if you happen to live anywhere that it’s actually being released. Until then, how about that latest trailer?
