Who's in it?
Iko Uwais, Arifin Putra and Alex Abbad
What's it about?
A day after the original Raid, Rama is offered the job of going inside for a couple of months to get in with a big crime syndicate so more corrupt cops can be brought down. Naturally he rejects, but after his brother is killed by a new crime boss on the rise he goes deep undercover to find the killer.
Any Good?
The original Raid was incredibly intense; a heart-pounder which had fights so incredible you just couldn't not watch - while The Raid 2 is brilliant, it just doesn't have that sense of urgency and inevitability the first had.
One big thing for me when hearing of this secret was Rama being the main again, not that there is anything wrong with him at all, I was just hoping for a new character to follow in the underground and I was gifted 4 just for thinking that.
Just one of these could power their own movie!
There was MASSIVE hype around Hammer Girl (above), and while she was brilliant and absolutely terrifying, I found both Baseball Bat Man and crime boss son Uco much better as characters. Baseball Bat Man was an absolute psycho, busting peoples skulls with a ball and demanding their friend give the ball back before bludgeoning them with the bat; he's like a demented version of the TF2 Scout. Uco reminded me a lot of Dominic Cooper in The Devils Double; a man who's father has a huge amount of power and they treat this like an excuse to do whatever they like.
While I didn't have that original Raid feeling of urgency until the last 10 minutes, it was more of a well told bunch of peoples' stories that tie together, like a more directly linked and action packed version of Pulp Fiction. This sequel is more Western in it's approach to the aftermath of fighting and shooting than the first, but it does get rough near the end and all the better for it! It's a great action movie and well worth seeing as I'm seeing it again on Monday with just as much excitement as the first time!
Rating? 
The (sigh..) Eldest Gorgebag
I adored The Raid (numero uno) and I was excited to see that they were releasing a 2nd one... But I might just wait for it to come out in a medium that I can watch at home!
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