The Furious opened in US theaters on June 12, and I need you to understand the cast this film put together. Joe Taslim. Yayan Ruhian. Jeeja Yanin. Xie Miao. All in the same movie. If those names mean anything to you, you already stopped reading this and started looking up showtimes. If they do not, let me explain why this matters.
Xie Miao plays a mute handyman who goes hunting for the traffickers who took his daughter. It is a premise that could easily slide into generic revenge territory, but his performance turns it into something more restrained and brutal than that. Joe Taslim plays the smooth talking fighter who teams up with him, and the chemistry between these two carries the film through its quieter stretches. Yayan Ruhian, who you might remember as Mad Dog from The Raid, plays the villain. He is terrifying in the role because he always is.
The film is sitting at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is almost unheard of for an action movie. SlashFilm called it the best action movie of 2026. The Wrap called it one of the best fight movies of the 21st century. Those are big claims, but when you see the fight choreography in this thing, they do not feel like exaggerations.
What sets The Furious apart from the usual action fare is the purity of its approach. There is no CGI spectacle, no universe building, no post credits stinger teasing a sequel. It is a tight, focused film about people who can fight, filmed by people who know how to shoot fights. The camera holds wide. The cuts are clean. You can actually see what is happening, which should not feel revolutionary in 2026, but somehow it does.
Jeeja Yanin, for anyone who has not seen Chocolate or Raging Phoenix, is one of the most gifted martial arts performers alive. Her inclusion alone would have made this film worth watching. The fact that she shares the screen with Taslim and Ruhian feels like someone raided a martial arts dream cast list and just said yes to all of it.
Your group chat probably already has a shorthand for this kind of movie, the ones where the premise is simple and the execution is immaculate. The Furious is the new entry on that list. It is the kind of film that makes you want to rewatch The Raid, Ong Bak, and Kill Bill back to back afterward, not because it borrows from them, but because it earns a place alongside them. Go see it in a theater. This one deserves the big screen.
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