The Raid

In 2011, a Welsh director named Gareth Evans working in Indonesia assembled a cast of real martial artists and a budget of just over a million dollars. The result was The Raid, a film that would redefine action cinema for a generation. Set almost entirely inside a single dilapidated 30-story apartment block in Jakarta, the movie strips storytelling to its essentials: a police squad enters a building controlled by a crime lord, and when their cover is blown, they must fight floor by floor to survive.

The film showcases Pencak Silat, an Indonesian martial art, through the extraordinary physicality of Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, and Yayan Ruhian. Choreographed over months of rehearsal, the fight sequences are shot in long, unbroken takes with no CGI or wire work. The actors sustained real injuries, broken bones, dislocated joints, during production. The score, co-composed by Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, blends electronic and traditional gamelan elements to drive the tension.

The Raid premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness section, winning the Audience Award. It went on to gross over nine million dollars worldwide against its tiny budget, earning a rare 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film's influence rippled through Hollywood, inspiring the close-quarters combat seen in John Wick and the hallway fight in Marvel's Daredevil series. It also put Indonesian cinema on the global map, paving the way for a sequel and a wave of Southeast Asian action films.[edit]

Rama, a young SWAT officer, rises before dawn in his modest Jakarta home. He kisses his pregnant wife goodbye, pauses to pray, and joins his 20-man tactical squad led by Lieutenant Wahyu. Their mission: infiltrate a 30-story tenement that serves as the impenetrable fortress of Tama Riyadi, a crime lord who has turned the building into a self-contained criminal empire. The operation is off the books, no backup, no extraction. The squad enters through a back entrance at dawn, moving silently through the lower floors, neutralizing guards with suppressed weapons.

A young lookout spots them. Tama broadcasts over the building's intercom: anyone who kills a police officer receives amnesty and a cash reward. The entire building, hundreds of armed thugs, drug dealers, killers, turns against the squad. Exits are sealed. Within minutes, half the team is dead. Rama becomes separated in the chaos, forced to navigate the deadly floors alone using his exceptional Pencak Silat skills. He encounters Jaka, the squad's stoic sergeant, who leads a handful of survivors in brutal room-to-room combat.

Rama discovers that his estranged brother Andi is one of Tama's top lieutenants. This revelation forces Rama into a moral conflict: Andi is both family and enemy. Meanwhile, the squad's radio operator Bowo and medic Gofar struggle to find a safe path upward. The building's enforcer, a terrifyingly efficient fighter known only as Mad Dog, begins hunting the survivors. The film follows Rama, Jaka, and Andi as they fight through machete-wielding gangs, knife-wielding assassins, and Mad Dog himself, ascending floor by floor toward Tama's penthouse. The plot is stripped down to survival and family loyalty, with no subplot or distraction from the vertical warzone.[edit]