There is something admirable and thrilling about a movie that has the confidence to tell you exactly what it is within its first few minutes. That’s a bigger gamble than you might think — a film bearing its soul to you so early that you can decide whether it’s your speed before its plot has even gotten underway. There are a lot of filmmakers who are too afraid to do this. The Night Comes For Us director Timo Tjahjanto is not one of them.
The Indonesian filmmaker wastes absolutely no time telling you what you should expect from his latest film, The Shadow Strays. The new neo-noir action movie, which is finally streaming on Netflix as of last weekend, is a thriller that knows how to do just about everything except hold back. Its opening minutes, in which a pair of ninja assassins known as “shadows” stage an attack on a criminal clan’s secluded fortress, unfurl with a ferocity and bloodlust that’ll make you sit up and knock the wind out of you.
This sequence features, among other things, two one-on-one samurai duels, an explosive grenade that peppers all of its nearby victims with nails, and a gag in which a dead man’s nearly severed head hangs on by a few threads of tissue and skin before completely falling off. Some people might not see this opening and think to call The Shadow Strays a “good time,” at least not in the traditional sense of the phrase. But those who do should strap themselves in for what is arguably the most technically astonishing action film of the year so far.
A violent quest for redemption
The Shadow Strays follows 13 (Aurora Ribero), a 17-year-old member of a group of for-hire assassins who are trained to adhere to a strict, connections-free lifestyle. When she begins to question the organization’s methods to her instructor and fellow “shadow,” Umbra (Hanna Malasan), she is put on an indefinite suspension and forced to spend her days sticking to an ominous medication regiment and waiting on an update in Jakarta. Whilst there, she crosses paths with Monji (Ali Fikri), a 13-year-old boy whose life is ruined when his mother is killed by her bosses, the members of a cruel crime syndicate with links to the very top of Jakarta’s political hierarchy.
When Monji subsequently goes missing, 13 decides to track down his mother’s killers and save him from a potentially tragic fate. In order to do so, she must embark on a ruthless, merciless quest that forces her to try to survive some of the most violent, bone-crunching showdowns that you’ll see in any movie this year. Along the way, 13’s seemingly omnipresent employers and overseers become involved in her mission as well — an escalation that only gives The Shadow Strays the chance to ratchet up its violence, gore, and chaos to even greater levels. At first, that might not seem possible, given how The Shadow Strays begins, but Tjahjanto once again proves how capable he is of consistently one-upping himself.
A madcap riff on familiar tropes
The film’s plot is, by no means, original. It is, in fact, an amalgamation of a dozen different noir and action movie tropes — from the assassin who decides to change their ways for a young, innocent child to the shadowy organizations that turn out to be even more corrupt than some of their already disillusioned members believe. The film does not shy away from these clichés, but instead leans into them — painting its characters with only the kind of over-the-top, broad strokes that could explain the ultraviolence they prove themselves willing to commit. In this sense, The Shadow Strays has just as much in common with the melodramatic, operatic John Woo action movies of the 1980s and ’90s (think The Killer or A Better Tomorrow) as it does its hyper-violent sister films, Gareth Evans’ The Raid and The Raid 2.
The Shadow Strays‘ story works less because of the strength of its characterization and plotting and more because of how well it synthesizes together all of its genre influences. The film’s world is one of neon lights, smog-covered skies, and thick, impenetrable shadows that seem to bleed into every environment and scene. It is a landscape befitting of a film that is so unabashed in its love of trashy, pulpy crime fiction. Some may quibble with the film’s undeniably self-indulgent 144-minute runtime, but devotees of the action and revenge genres will likely welcome the amount of time it gives them to get lost in its world of hitmen-with-soft-hearts, innocent, easily hurt children, and drug-dealing pimps practically begging for a comeuppance of some kind. The Shadow Strays gives it to them — and then some.
Action at its most violent — and beautiful
The film’s action sequences are nothing short of breathtaking. Muhammad Irfan’s stunt and fight choreography involves a kind of fluid, balletic exchange of blows between combatants and a full use of each of The Shadow Strays‘ battle arenas that is never anything but completely thrilling to witness. Visually, Tjahjanto composes each set piece and fight out of wide shots and medium-length takes, all the while moving his camera with the same intensity and elegant grace as his actors’ bodies. Their movements dictate every pan and shift that his camera makes, and every edit is seemingly motivated by a punch, gunshot, slash, or stab that only makes each cut feel like a mirror of its respective fight’s progression.
As a director, Tjahjanto remains uniquely adept at highlighting both the smoky beauty of his worlds and the grimy brutality of them. Simple images of 13’s bruised, calloused hand gliding across a handrail reinforce the cost and the devastating physical effects violence has on the human body and the world at large just as much as the director’s lingering shots of heads rolling on the ground and swords piercing chests. The Shadow Strays is a shockingly brutal film — one made by a filmmaker whose love of violent, B-movie cinema continues to be elevated by his own, unrivaled technical skill and artistry. His latest is a full-throated roar of an action film that demands to be witnessed for yourself.
The Shadow Strays is streaming now on Netflix.
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