August162024

THE SHADOW STRAYS: Timo Tjahjanto’s Newest Thriller Aims To Please In The First Poster

Lee B. Golden IIIFestivals And Events, News, Postersfilmcombatsyndicate.com, netflix, the shadow strays, tiff 2024, timo tjahjanto1

Timo Tjahjanto’s newest Indonesian actioner, The Shadow Strays, clocks in at almost the same duration as his previous thriller, The Big 4. Any way you slice, anyone who enjoys his work is gonna have a hell of a time watching it, and that especially goes for the crowd attending the film’s World Premiere in the Midnight Madness section of the 49th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival next month.

At long last now with a trailer inbound, Tjahjanto is keeping up the traction through his teasy social media shenanigans, with the latest being a satisfying new teaser poster which you can view below. The Shadow Strays is yet to be announced a date for its Netflix launch while September 10 and 14 dates have been slated for its Toronto screenings. Peep the ink below just beneath the rousing new programming notes by Peter Kuplowsky:

From action auteur Timo Tjahjanto (Headshot, TIFF ’16, The Night Comes For Us), a young assassin breaks rank from her clandestine organization to rescue a young boy from gangsters with ultra-violent repercussions.
Stripped of her past and trained in the deadly art of fucking your shit up, adolescent assassin Codename 13 (Aurora Ribero) works diligently for a clandestine collective of killers known as The Shadow. After a mission goes sideways in Japan, her mentor, Umbra (Hana Malasan), picks up the fumble, but boots her to Indonesia on a disciplinary probation. While laying low in the slums of Jakarta, a chance encounter with a young boy who has run afoul of a local crime syndicate soon embroils the restless and rebellious 13 in an unsanctioned crusade, inciting a bevy of bloody battles that paint the town every shade of red, as well as drawing the ire of her merciless management.
Not since The Night Comes for Us has Indonesia’s preeminent architect of ultra-violent action, Timo Tjahjanto, conducted such a meticulous martial arts massacre. Opening with a bravura set piece that lays waste to dozens of yakuza, his latest proceeds as a kind of taxonomy of the action genre with a string of sword fights, shoot-em-ups, and old-fashioned fisticuffs, as 13 is pitted against a murderer’s row of, well… murderers.
Stuffed with palpable nods to action classics, as well as Tjahjanto’s prior bonafides (Headshot, TIFF ’16), the whole extravaganza recalls the excess of John Woo’s Hard Boiled, right down to the warehouse showdown that goes to hell in a parade of pyrotechnics. Woo’s epic was made on the precipice of his arrival in Hollywood, and, given Tjahjanto’s impending studio assignments (a sequel to Nobody and a US remake of Train to Busan), Midnighters will appreciate The Shadow Strays as a bid for a similar milestone.