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The Most Intense Action Thriller of the Year Gets 10/10 First Look

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Nobody does action quite like Hong Kong. The region has given the world some of the most influential directors and classic films, like John Woo‘s The Killer and Hard Boiled, and Jackie Chan‘s action-comedy Police Story. At the Toronto International Film Festival last year, a new film staked its claim as a modern Hong Kong masterpiece, earning a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes following its Midnight Madness premiere and finishing as a runner-up for the section’s People’s Choice Award behind Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie in a stacked field that also featured Curry Barker‘s Obsession. That title was Kenji Tanagaki‘s martial arts epic The Furious, and we’re thrilled to include it as part of Collider’s Exclusive Summer Preview series ahead of its arrival in theaters next month.

Set to be released by Lionsgate, The Furious is a violent mixing pot of bloody action film and revenge thriller DNA, most commonly earning comparisons to Gareth EvansThe Raid and the Liam Neeson favorite Taken. It centers on a resolute father named Wang Wei (Xie Miao), whose daughter is kidnapped by a human trafficking network, sending him on a path of destruction to get her back when it’s clear the police will be of no help. His only ally in his pursuit of vengeance is a journalist named Navin (Joe Taslim), whose wife has mysteriously vanished, likely at the hands of the same criminal organization. Together, they face the kidnappers head-on, raining fists and fury upon anyone in their way either to save the ones they love or, at the very least, bring justice to the men responsible for ripping them away.

As part of our preview event, we can share two new exclusive images that highlight The Furious‘ heroes as they prepare to fight. The first looks as if it belongs right alongside The Raid, with its gritty aesthetic backing a bloodied, yet determined Wei and Navin. Neither Xie nor Taslim is a stranger to martial arts action flicks, with the former cutting his teeth as the on-screen son of the legendary Jet Li in The New Legend of Shaolin and My Father Is a Hero, and the latter shining in The Raid, Fast & Furious 6, and, most recently, Mortal Kombat II. When they’re both stanced up, pure carnage is about to unfold. On the flip side, the other shot highlights the more personal angle of the film, showing Wei next to his daughter, Rainy (Yang Enyou). Judging by their looks, neither will make it out of this nightmare scenario completely unscathed, and there’s always the fear of who or what could be waiting around any corner to interrupt this rescue mission.

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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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‘The Furious’ Is Packed With Martial Arts Prowess

Joining Xie and Taslim in the chaotic martial arts epic is another The Raid alum, Yayan Ruhian, who’s responsible for some of the most kinetic modern action scenes ever put to screen, from Evans’ classic and its sequel to John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum. Also starring are Chocolate and Triple Threat standout Jeeja Yanin, Everything Everywhere All At Once‘s Brian Le, and Alice in Borderland‘s Joey Iwanaga. Tanagaki directed from a script by Mak Tin Shu, Lei Zhilong, Shum Kwan Sin, and Frank Hui, and, during an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub at TIFF, he confirmed that it only took a breezy 60 days to shoot The Furious. 18 days and “every night” alone were spent on a massive fight in a police station, further making the film a technical marvel carried by its remarkable choreography and killer cast.

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The Furious hits theaters on June 12. Check out our exclusive images above and stay tuned here at Collider throughout the week for more exciting new looks at the hottest upcoming films in our summer preview series.


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Release Date
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June 12, 2026

Runtime

114 Minutes

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Director

Kenji Tanigaki

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