The Furious Is the Adrenaline-Fueled Thrill Ride John Wick Fans Have Been Waiting For

Action fans, take note: we've all been swimming in a lake of John Wick knockoffs lately, but there’s a new Hong Kong import that actually looks poised to break away from the pack. It’s called The Furious, and you’ll hear a lot more about it pretty soon. The movie’s been buzzing since its first showing at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025 (yes, next September, festival calendar can be weird), and that hype only ramped up once its trailer landed online — packed with bonkers, beautifully brutal fight scenes that had action nerds frothing at the mouth.

The Plot: Not Exactly Revolutionary, But That’s Not the Point

Let’s be straight: The Furious isn’t selling a brand-new story. The core setup is basically Action Movie 101:

• A regular guy’s daughter gets kidnapped by some truly unpleasant folks.
• A reporter’s wife gets nabbed by the same criminal crew.
• The two team up and try to blast and brawl their way through Hong Kong’s criminal underbelly to get their loved ones back.

That’s not what’s got people talking. You’ve seen a dozen revenge thrillers with that basic premise in the last ten years — but what The Furious does with it is where things get interesting.

Why Critics Are Losing Their Minds

Here’s the part that should make John Wick fans perk up: The Furious is sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes right now, and that’s with 20 actual reviews logged. (Hard to do, even for festival stuff.) Almost every reviewer is laser-focused on one thing: the fight choreography.

From the School of ‘Gun Fu,’ Only Crazier

Remember how John Wick felt like a love letter to the old Hong Kong ‘gun fu’ style — think John Woo slow-mo shootouts, real weight in every punch, and action scenes that play out in long, unbroken takes? Director Kenji Tanigaki is straight-up running with that legacy, while somehow turning the dial even higher.

If you live for movies where combat scenes are not just filler, but actual art, this is your new religion. Multiple critics have described the action as 'balletic one minute, vicious the next' — and apparently there are sequences that are so inventive and wild, people are calling the whole film an 'instant masterpiece.' Dialogue and story? Serviceable. But if you want martial arts and melee mayhem, Tanigaki has delivered the goods.

A choice pull-quote from a festival critic sums it up:
'The Furious is what happens when you let fight choreographers run wild and nobody tells them "enough is enough".'

Not Just Another Wick Wannabe

Let’s face it, John Wick has spawned a whole generation of movies trying (and usually failing) to recreate the magic — for every Nobody or Atomic Blonde that sort-of nails it, we get a truckload that miss the point entirely. The Furious seems to finally actually get why those movies work. And since there are two main characters (instead of just one), you can probably expect even crazier team-up brawls and seamless choreography as they take on armies of bad guys together.

If you’re the type who likes to declare “best fight scenes ever” the moment the credits roll, you might want to prepare early — The Furious has a real shot at topping a lot of end-of-year lists once it opens wider this May. I’d bet good money we’re about to see a lot of action directors scrambling to figure out how these fight scenes were even shot.

Bottom Line

Put it this way: if you’ve sat through enough limp would-be Wick clones recently and want something that’s actually going to raise your pulse, The Furious needs to be on your radar. If it lives up to the hype (and based on those festival reactions, it just might), we might actually get a new gold standard for vengeance-driven martial arts mayhem—and a reminder why Hong Kong action is still king of the hill.