The Raid (5 Stars)

Every month my local cinema has a "Weird Wednesday" feature on the third Wednesday of the month. Isn't today the fourth Wednesday? Someone can't count. But apart from that, the organisers have said they intend to do a Weird Wednesday twice a month, on the first and third Wednesdays. This is still in planning, so it might not happen straight away, or only sporadically.

In the past the films were really weird. They were low budget horror films. The recent films haven't been weird, by my definition of the word. There's nothing weird about "The Raid", it's just a first rate action film.

It was announced beforehand that the film has been remastered, and the new version would be shown. That confused me. I've watched the film several times on Blu-ray, and I couldn't detect any faults. My questions were answered in the cinema. There was a short introduction by the director, Gareth Evans. When it comes to their own films, directors are their harshest critics. He said that the film had been made on a relatively low budget, and he hadn't been able to make it exactly as he wanted. He claimed that some scenes had been too murky, which I hadn't noticed, so he brightened them. Some special effects were reshot by the original team. He also said that he would have restructured parts of the film, but he resisted the temptation. The new version is exactly the same as the original version, it just looks better.

I confess, it's three years since I last watched "The Raid", so I couldn't see any differences. I'll just take Gareth's word for it, and I'll wait for the remastered version to be made available on disc.

I asked the organisers after the film if they intend to show "The Raid 2" in a future Weird Wednesday. They said they want to, but they don't yet have permission from the distributors. 2024 is the film's 10th anniversary, so they expect it to be settled before the end of the year.

Success Rate:  + 6.5

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