berandal

On Thursday night, Twitter followers of action maestro Gareth Evans watched as he decided to tweet everything fans could possibly want to hear at this stage of the post production process for The Raid 2: Berandal after wrapping in July:

“Teaser trailer sent for VFX work & grading. Scoring done. Sound mix next. Aiming at putting it out around 7/11 Nov if all goes smooth.” 

“Saving a bunch of stuff for the main trailer hopefully end of December early January.” 

“Not planning to put too many clips out there – seems a lot of films these days are showing way too much before they even release.” 

“We have 17 action sequences in the film – so there’s going to be a lot fresh material unspoiled by any teaser or trailer we release.” 

“At most both combined would equate to 3mins 30s. Last I checked – the action alone clocked in around 1hr 5mins mark.”

Personally, I’m beyond words at this point about how excited I am for this movie, on top of Donnie Yen’s Special ID. I can only imagine the amount of comprehensive work that was put into making this film possible,  with a fresher look and cast, and ample fight scenes centered on the film’s mainstay action style, Silat.

The Raid: Redemption is pretty much on anyone’s list of best action films of the history of martial arts cinema, and with part two on the way, one can only hope that the possible trilogy that will hopefully come of this film will leave an even bigger mark on the genre’s existence.

Writer/director Gareth Evans found himself a gold mine with this one, a fact that comes undoubtedly after the rousing approval of film festival goers in the last few months who already got to see a clip of the film. So there’s no doubt that he is handling this one with a LOT of care before stepping into the director’s chair with The Raid actor Joe Taslim for the UK action suspense thriller, The Night Comes For Us, and then possibly moving onto a third film for The Raid franchise; Time will tell how things play out by then though, with Out Of The Furnace co-scribe, screenwriter Brad Inglesby’s script for the US remake of the first film handles the task.

In the meantime, Evans, as he puts it, hopes you like your fights long, since this will be his last martial arts venture for a few years. So hopefully you are following him on Twitter, so as to have an idea of the awesomeness headed our way next year. If you have, then good. If not…then wait no more and follow him already!

By the way, Evans has one more message for you all:

To everyone that has expressed excitement & anticipation about The Raid 2 teaser. Thank you, I read everything & you’re fucking awesome.
— Gareth Evans (@ghuwevans) October 18, 2013

The Raid 2: Berandal follows up the events from the 2011 thriller featuring international action hero Iko Uwais reprising his role from the first film. Also starring are Tio Pakusadewo, Putra Arifin Scheunamann, Alex Abbad, Roy Marten and returning actor Yayan Ruhian, along with Marsha Timothy, Julie Estelle, Very Tri Yulisman, Cecep Arif Rahman, Oka Antara and Epy Kusnandar, and Japanese actors Ryuhei Matsuda, Kenuchi Endo and Kazuki Kitamura. Uwais and Ruhian directed the action sequences along with guest fight choreographer Larnell Stovall and Hong Kong stunt coordinator Bruce Law. The film is produced by PT Merantau Films and XYZ Films.

North American distributor Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions currently has multi-territorial distribution rights to the upcoming sequel with a release date pending, following the film’s Indonesian domestic release.

Look out for the teaser in the next twenty days!

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Director Gareth Evans took to twitter today to set the record straight on images taken from the set that we proclaimed to be of the character, Prakoso, from the set of The Raid 2, also known as its Indonesian title, Berandal, meaning “Punk”. “Okay so a few people have started posting snaps of @YayanRuhian during downtime on set as images of him as Prakoso in #TheRaid2Berandal” he tweets. “Those photos aren’t him in character… This is Prakoso #TheRaid2Berandal” he says, sharing the photo which can be seen on the left.

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