The Shadow Strays

Film industry has always been popular in Indonesia and now it is expanding its borders due to streaming and conquest of The Raid film by Gareth Evans. After that, for the last few years, we saw many remarkable action and horror movies from Southeast Asia, mostly directed by Timo Tjahjanto. It is these attributes of extremely creative fight choreography and excessive cruelty that Tjahjanto possesses, both as an independent writer and director and as a half of The Mo Brothers. So today we’re getting a chance to watch the next piece from the director: The Shadow Strays. As expected with such a name, The Shadow Strays has a runtime of two and a half hours. The Shadow Strays is a lot of things, and probably more than one person could technically handle. Traveling around the entire Asia to shoot the big banquet gave the viewers a big feast for the genre lovers. There are many action scenes that are carefully designed, shot, and edited with changing levels throughout the film – the fights and Tjahjanto’s take on brutalization should really be pushed further. However since there were many moments between the chaotic scenes, The Shadow Strays is somewhat successful but still has issues with pacing during the non-action sequences.

The Shadow Strays is rarely a survivor, showing an abundance of style associated with the glorious John Woo. Made on a shoestring budget and with little originality in plot, the film assaults the senses with violence that usually finds a home in slasher pictures. The production, however, has the luxury of being able to reproduce horror set pieces against a large budget. Starting off strong with a scene set in Japan, we are introduced to the term ФShadows”, which is used to refer to undercover assassins. The scene where she helps wipe out a Yakuza clan meets 13 (Aurora Ribero), a Shadow recruit tortured by Umbra (Hana Malasan), when her training goes off track. After performing duty on the bench and taking state-sponsored anti-queer pills, 13 returns her never-pink city, Jakarta, where she meets Monji (Sebastian Sero), a little boy whose parents were murdered by the mafia. With deep-seated recollections of her own childhood, 13 is motivated to adopt Monji. If the criminals take him away, 13 gets annoyed, finds out who they are and does whatever it takes to kill them.

Many things are happening in The Shadow Strays and by a mile, most of it does not hold any logic. Tjahjanto attempts to give the Shadows a characterization of super-soldiers or dutiful warriors, but we spend so little time watching them at the missions that it seems unnecessary. The vast majority of the plot revolves around 13 using her training to hunt down and kill the culprits who abduct Monji and that alone should be enough for this film to be in context. Also, the other antagonists have been consistent in using quarreling tactics which predominantly infer about their sinister plot that include sexual rituals, slaughter, and lust for power. The treasonous policemen and gangsters are out to conquer Jakarta but both 13 and Monji are hurdles to their plans. There is a sub-plot somewhere in the mid of The Shadow Strays that attempts to change the plot and give 13 some form of a detour, but most of the time it just adds on to the already too long running time of the film by adding another big action scene. Since The Shadow Strays is meant to be melodramatic, there is a comic edge to exposition scenes which may be annoying to some of the audience who expect some linear development in the film and are in a rush to get to the action.

The storyline in The Shadow Strays has an interaction in which the audience gets surprised specifically at the female assassin character, which does seem out of place in today’s world but the rest is pure horror stuffing with a bludgeoning humor. Right from the opening salvo, there is a generous dose of CGI splatter, and every conceivable weapons including guns, knives, swords and household items are used. But when the guns and knives are insufficient, teeth and fingers come into play as the panicked bodies crumple to the ground. Aurora Ribero and Hana Malasan are brilliant as they seamlessly incorporate the mentor/mentee dynamics with a subtle sense of being family which does not become predictable. It is largely the villains who come with the most weaknesses in this film. In this interactive drama, every antagonist appears to have been lifted shamelessly from a Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal movie. Indeed, it is entertaining to see them perish, but they impact the story’s tempo when they resort to philosophizing.

Timo Tjahjanto has proven that his style involves crossing the line and crossing the line quite spectacularly at times. He is a director who has managed to scare audiences in The ABCs of Death, V/H/S/2, and V/H/S/94, yet having worked on May The Devil Take You and The Mo Brothers’ Headshot, Tjahjanto seems both an influence for the current trend of the John Wick inspired movies. Probably the reason to this is that Tjahjanto recently completed filming Nobody 2, featuring actor Bob Odenkirk, and will most likely include similar styles of violence. The filmmaker appears to be primed for Hollywood success if he had stepped in twenty years earlier when studios were willing to finance R rated films. It is worth noting that this work is quite a good production from the creative and logistical point of view even though the film is quite cliché with the words and exaggerated touch to its dramatics.

The Shadow Strays is a bloody action film that is close to being perfect considering that it runs for more than an hour. I felt myself almost skipping through the dialogue to get back to the more interesting areas of the film; a decision I’m sure many other viewers will make as well. One can more or less skip the beginning of the film and understand most of what the Shadow Strays is about and that is its most serious flaw. However, this film is perfect in the hand to hand combat department because the risk of missing a single roundhouse kick or hair ripper is too much. The Shadow Strays is likely the best action film of the year and each sequence is so epic that one expects the next sequence to outdo the former without fail.

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