Furie is the first Vietnamese film to be released in the US, and it features a woman kicking ass so I was eager to see it on the big screen. A single mother living in the country for ten years and working as a debt collector tries to raise her kid not to be like her until a group of men snatches her daughter. She is forced to face her past in order to rescue her daughter. Basically it is Taken, but the kid is younger, and the protagonist is less proud of her special set of skills because she was a bad guy.
Furie promised me a mother kicking ass, and it delivered a mother kicking ass so I’m a happy camper. These kind of movies are not supposed to be anything more than entertaining and thrilling so if you don’t like action movies, then definitely skip, but if you’re looking for a Liam Neeson substitute, then Veronica Ngo is the woman for you. It literally begins with her just whaling on people, but what was cool with the movie is that she feels ambivalent about the whole thing so you get a Xena early years vibe. The movie shows her observing a group of men in the same profession, and she kind of knows on some level that she is still victimizing people and a complete bully. The best part is that we’re seeing her trying to do better and living a better life for her is just breaking people’s legs because they’re in debt, not just randomly hurting people because she feels like it.
Also the protagonist is vulnerable in a plausible, not a demeaning way. She prefers not to confront large groups of men, often gets hurt badly and can be beat so it raises the stakes regarding whether or not she will succeed in her mission. Sure she has emotion and experience on her side, but she has also been spending the last ten years fighting people without experience. I really enjoyed the constant shift between victim and victimizer because it heightens her moral quandary. When she returns to her old stomping ground, she is constantly confronted with the fact that she is out of step and has missed a lot while she was raising her daughter as any mother who has left the workforce can tell you. It takes a bit to get back into the working world again, am I right, ladies?
Furie slows down a bit too much for my tastes in the middle. I just wanted her focused like a laser fighting everybody, but the movie occasionally takes breathing breaks to provide supporting characters that I thought weren’t necessary. I did not need the cop detour. I understand that the movie uses it as a road to respectability and redemption, but I didn’t come for the sympathetic detective, I came for the ass kicking mama. Also I’m not sure if I fully understood his connection to her past so either they needed to elaborate more or just dump it altogether. Her brief, but salty reunion with her family really didn’t move the plot forward. I was satisfied with the flashbacks because they showed what happened in the past. In spite of that, I enjoyed the comedic relief and the reference to American movies. I thought that woman furthered the theme of mothers willing to do anything for their kids.
I really enjoyed the villain, but thought that the connection with the past was too rushed or maybe something got lost in translation. If I were a boss like that villain, and one of my employees that snatched a kid to satisfy his personal vendetta and jeopardized my moneymaking operation, I would kill you and the mother. I would have loved that scene to be added to the movie because it would have made the villain more terrifying. I completely thought that it was possible that the mother could kick all the henchmen’s ass because they were overconfident and based on the protagonist’s appearances thought that they could take her easily, but the villain and the protagonist are cut from the same cloth. Under different circumstances, they would be equals-either rivals or allies.
I didn’t mind the kid. She had a few good points, and she didn’t get herself into obvious trouble. I don’t want to blame the victim, but kids in movies can be stupid and annoying. I never found myself annoyed with her although she was a bit sassy. There is a moment in the denouement that I thought was ridiculous, but I’m going to lay the blame at her mom’s feet, i.e. the writer. Everything in that scene is just dumb, and Ngo deserves an award for not rolling her eyes at the stupidity that her character showed. It was another attempt of Furie’s creators to make the cop story germane.
There was a tiger theme throughout the movie (like a mama bear story), but it is introduced in the middle and does not get picked up again until the end when a train car is filled with boxes saying tiger. The first time it happens, I thought that it heightened the anticipation and tension in the middle perfectly, but by the end, it felt unnecessary because I already understand that she is relentless. I don’t need to think of her like a tiger.
Furie was beautiful to look at. It did a great job shooting in the day ad showing the beauty of the countryside then shooting at night in the big city. The lighting struck a perfect atmospheric mood that is sustained for the rest of the movie. For the most part, the fight scenes are beautifully shot and never descend into chaos cinema although there are not as many long shots as I would prefer. The movie definitely hits all the iconic action movie notes: chase scenes, train fight, water battle, hallway fights. If your action hero does not go through a gauntlet, then you don’t know what you’re doing and have no business being in action films, but this movie puts Ngo through the paces, and she does a tremendous job. Her fights with the villain were nice and showed the foils’ contrasting personalities perfectly.
Furie would make an excellent franchise. Because they introduced the extraneous cop plotline, future installments could take a buddy cop route, and she clould be a respectable enforcer. I don’t know enough about the specifics of martial arts, but it features Voviman, a Vietnamese martial art that I bet doesn’t get seen often in movies so more sophisticated martial arts lovers will definitely want to check it out.
Dumb question: why was the movie called Furie?