Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Furie Blu-ray Movie Review

How do you say 'Taken' in Vietnamese?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 25, 2019

Bryan Mills, the character essayed by Liam Neeson in the Taken 3-Movie Collection, famously had “a particular set of skills” that allowed him to maraud through a series of bad guys in order to rescue various folks, including family members, but one might reasonably argue that Mills’ “particular set of skills” didn’t really include meaningful family relationships. Think about it for a moment, especially with regard to the first film — there are a few introductory vignettes setting up the situation of Mills’ daughter being kidnapped, and then Mills’ understandably fraught reaction, but there is little to no actual on screen contextualizing of the father-daughter relationship, other than Mills wanting to rescue her. That “missing” aspect (no pun intended) is wisely ameliorated in the somewhat similar Furie, a film which posits a Vietnamese character named Hai Phuong (Veronica Ngo), who in fact also has “a particular set of skills” which come into play after her daughter Mai (Cát Vy) is, yes, kidnapped, for reasons which are probably considerably even more nefarious than those with regard to Mills’ daughter in Taken.

One of the things that Furie arguably gets right, and something which also arguably gives this film more of an emotional current than Taken offered, is that it spends at least some time detailing the relationship between mother and daughter before getting into the whole " Taken aspect". While there’s a bit of clunky exposition early in the film detailing the fact that Mai is illegitimate, and that Hai’s past is shaded (to say the least), there’s a very real feeling to the interactions between the two. Hai does in fact have a troubled and troubling history, one wrapped up with organized crime (or whatever the Vietnamese equivalent might be), but she’s managed to put together some semblance of a life by working as a debt collector. And in fact some opening vignettes, which are presented without much context, show Hai marauding through a series of debtors, often delivering a bit of butt kicking “reminders” that they’re seriously past due. (The film offers a perhaps rare look at the lesser known martial art of Vovinam.)

Hai’s “career” has made Mai something of an outcast at her school, and the mother-daughter relationship is also strained further when Mai is accused of something she didn’t do and Hai doesn’t come to her defense. That in turn leads to a cascading series of events which ultimately sees Mai kidnapped in a rather terrifying (if also kind of rote) child trafficking angle that has an organ harvesting aspect. Hai of course springs into action to rescue her little girl, and most of the rest of the film is given over to Hai’s pursuit of the bad guys (and, interestingly, bad gals, as one of the main henchmen turns out to be a henchwoman.)

Once Mai does of course end up being, well, taken, Hai literally takes off after her, coming amazingly close to rescuing her almost immediately, though of course there wouldn't be a film if she were to succeed that early in the story. Hai's "damaged" past returns to haunt her, but ultimately the police get involved, including a detective named Luong (Phan Thanh Nhiên), who not so coincidentally happens to be a skilled martial artist himself.

The general trajectory of this tale is pretty much a foregone conclusion from the get go, despite a few “tricks” that show up (especially toward the climax) that may lead some to believe this film will not have a totally happy ending. What makes things really click, though, are the viscerally exciting action elements, as well as a really powerful performance from Ngo, who makes Hai’s increasing panic palpably real. The film also benefits from some scenic if occasionally pretty grimy looks at various Vietnamese locations.

Furie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Furie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This is another release without a ton of technical data easily findable online, though it does appear that cinematographer Morgan Schmidt utilized Arri Alexa cameras for the shoot. As usual, I'm assuming this was finished at a 2K DI. The results here are rather striking looking quite a bit of the time, especially considering how deeply graded toward purples, violets and blues a lot of the film is. Detail levels are quite impressive throughout the presentation, and some of the outdoor location footage offers pretty substantial depth of field. Patterns on costumes or even the look of some elements like hemp rope are typically very precise in appearance. There are some deficits in shadow detail, especially toward the final third or so of the film, much of which takes place in rather dimly lit environments.

Furie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Furie features a very expressive DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1* track that offers consistent surround activity and some really well done effects, as in some scenes where Hai takes off on a little scooter chasing after the bad guys, with resultant panning that nicely populates the surround channels. The film has a glut of "crowd" scenes where background clatter spills into the side and rear channels quite effectively. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly throughout. There is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track offering an English dub, but I frankly couldn't stand some of the voice work, so my personal advice is to stick with the original unless you simply can't stand reading subtitles.

*Audio specs are being updated as this review is being published, so the Vietnamese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 listing above will be corrected soon.

Furie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes features a quartet of short EPKs whose titles explain their content:

  Difficult Action Scenes (1080i; 3:16)

  
  

  French Action Team (1080i; 2:34)

  
  

  Mai Cat Vi (1080i; 3:38)

  
  

  Phan Thanh Nhien (1080i; 3:43)

• Trailer (1080p; 1:55)

As usual with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored so that the supplements follow each other automatically (which means selecting the first Behind the Scenes featurette is effectively a "Play All" button. The disc moves on automatically to trailers for other Well Go USA releases once the trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also plays at disc boot up.

Furie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Furie takes the basic premise of Taken and ups the ante pretty significantly by spending enough time developing the mother and daughter relationship early in the film so that audience actually cares what happens, rather than just responding to regular jolts of adrenaline (which this film supplies in massive quantities). The story is ultimately pretty predictable, which may be one liability in a film which otherwise hits the ground running (in more ways than one) and rarely lets up. Ngo is an absolute force of nature in this film, and it's great to see a female taking on some traditionally male action adventure territory here. The Vietnamese locations are also very interesting, and the film has a rather distinctive flavor due to its "ethnicity". Technical merits are strong, and Furie comes Recommended.