The Raid [Blu-ray]

Product Description

Deep in the heart of one of Jakarta’s most deprived slums stands an impenetrable high-rise apartment block. To most it is 30 floors of Hell to be avoided at all costs but for many of the city's most dangerous killers and gangsters, including the area's most notorious crime lord, it is a fortress-like safe house protecting them from the law. Even for the bravest and most experienced police officers it is considered a no-go area.

In a desperate bid to flush these violent criminals and their leader from their haven once and for all, an elite SWAT team is tasked with infiltrating the building and raiding the apartments floor by floor, taking out anyone who stands in their way. Cloaked under the cover of pre-dawn darkness, the SWAT members make their move and enter the block not realising that this is the easier part of the mission. Once inside, it soon becomes terrifyingly apparent that the real problem at hand is surviving long enough to be able to get out again.

Special Features:

• Director's commentary (exclusive to UK)
• The Raid feature--original language with English subtitles
• The Raid feature with English language dubbing
• Featuring U.S. and original uncut version
• Trailers
• Video blogs
• Claycats: The Raid
• The Raid fan films
  
• Featurettes
• Behind the Music with Mike Shinoda and Joe Trapanese
• An Evening with Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais

From Amazon.co.uk

Superlatives may as well have been invented in the first place simply to describe the action sequences in the outstanding The Raid. It's hard to think of too many other films that have framed action cinema as ambitiously as director Gareth Evans and his team manage here, bringing the events of The Raid to life in exhilarating, breathless fashion.

The simple idea behind the film is this. A 30-storey tower block houses some of the most dangerous, nastiest criminals in Jakarta. Unsurprisingly most give it a wide berth, until an elite SWAT team embarks on a deadly mission to effectively clear the building out, a floor at a time. It's spoiling nothing to reveal that this plan has its flaws.

What makes The Raid so much more than this basic premise, though, is the incredible, stunning execution of it. This is a pure, relentless, expert action film, boasting incredible camera work and equally strong fighting. In fact, feel free to throw a few more superlatives at the movie. It absolutely deserves it.

So does the Blu-ray package, too. It's not just the quality of the picture and audio transfer that deserves praise here, as someone's really put their back into providing an excellent collection of special features. This particular edition includes a director's commentary that's exclusive to the British release, and there's a lot of behind the scenes material and promotional work to enjoy, too.

The Raid is, then, that rarest of things: a modern action cinema classic. Really. That it comes on such a strong Blu-ray only makes things better. --Jon Foster