Action movies have certainly benefited from CGI and other visual enhancements, but ask any action fan what truly captivates them, and they’ll likely point to something far more realistic. There’s an unmatched thrill in watching expertly choreographed hand-to-hand combat, where punches land with bone-crunching force and whatever objects happen to be nearby become brutal improvised weapons. The Raid has, since its 2011 release, remained the undisputed gold standard of hyper-violent action, even inspiring the endlessly entertaining John Wickafter it. While it may be a while before we see any new entry from either franchise, a newly released Hong Kong action thriller has channeled the best of both, and American audiences are loving it.
The year has so far seen an impressive slate of films across virtually every major genre. Sci-fi fans have had their fix with releases like Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, and Project Hail Mary, while anticipation continues to build for Dune: Part Three. Horror has also enjoyed a surprisingly strong year thanks to standouts likeBackrooms and Obsession, while lighter fare such as The Devil Wears Prada 2 and The Super Mario Galaxy Moviehas helped balance out the year’s more intense offerings. This weekend, Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey is poised to give fantasy its own moment. Then, when it comes to raw, brutal action, no film has made a bigger impression than the Hong Kong martial arts thriller The Furious.
Directed by Kenji Tanigaki, The Furious premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025 to unanimous acclaim. The martial arts thriller debuted with a perfect 100% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes before eventually settling at a still-exceptional 98% as more reviews were added. Remarkably, that momentum carried through the film’s lengthy wait for its June 12 theatrical release, despite opening in a year packed with blockbuster competition. With its U.S. theatrical release being limited, growing interest in the movie prompted its digital release to arrive early, moving it from July 17 to July 7 to serve its growing audience. Now, a week into its digital debut, the film has consistently ranked among the Top 10 titles on major platforms in the U.S., including Amazon, Apple TV, and Google, as well as in the UK and Ireland.
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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
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🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
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01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
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02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
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03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
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04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
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05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
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06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
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07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
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08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
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09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
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10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
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Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
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Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
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Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
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John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
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Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
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What Is ‘The Furious’ About?
Like John Wick, revenge is what drives The Furious‘s protagonists. The film follows an ordinary man determined to dismantle the criminal organization responsible for kidnapping his daughter. His search for justice leads him to an unlikely ally in a journalist who has also suffered at the hands of the same syndicate. Their vengeful warpath brings them through wave after wave of deadly adversaries, resulting in the kind of relentlessly choreographed martial arts set pieces that action fans live for. The film boasts an impressive ensemble of genre veterans, including Ip Man star Xie Miao, Warrior and Mortal Kombat actor Joe Taslim, The Raid andMortal Kombat star Yayan Ruhian, Brian Le, and Thai martial arts icon JeeJa Yanin.
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The Furious is now available to stream across major digital platforms. Given its relentless buzz, one of the big streamers is likely to snap up its streaming rights soon. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
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