If the wait for another Gareth Evans movie is starting to gnaw at you the way so many fists and knives cut into an Indonesian gangster, any small piece from the director should make that interim somewhat easier — or all the more difficult. Good news: the writer-director and his frequent acting-choreography collaborators Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman (recently wasted in Star Wars: The Force Awakens) have developed a black-and-white, samurai-centered short aiming “to create choreography that maintains the style and rhythm set out in their prior work (The Raid 1&2) while staying within the parameters of a PG-13/12A audience friendly certification.” [Criterion Cast]
At five minutes, it’s brief, and with a non-existent conflict — the description makes note of of “a young warrior is given the task of delivering a treaty between two rival lords,” here attacked by “two assassins intent on intercepting her message of peace in a bid to maintain the fear, instability and violent rule of their leader”; whatever you say! — it’s also rather slight. But Evans’ transition to a different form of action and fresh environment makes for a perfectly amiable viewing experience — credit to Fajar Yuskemal and Aria Prayogi for a believable aping of wuxia tones — and so one gets the sense that, with a chance to flesh out narrative and character over more time, as well as an opportunity to fashion more scenes, he might be onto something. As far as demo reels go, we could be looking at much worse.
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