And that’s how you decapitate somebody! Timo Tjahjanto as far as I’m concerned deserves an honorary Oscar as a part of completely revitalizing the action movie genre. The Shadow Strays hopefully continues a long partnership with Netflix, which has already produced one of the best films on the streamer. Tjahjanto probably pitched Netflix with it’s the Night Comes for Us, but a whole epic drama about the Operator character, and after you watch this, they probably just threw gobs of blood soaked money at him.
A thrilling opening introduces us to the Shadows, a secret organization of assassins built upon high stakes missions. The mission is a success, sort of: Teacher Umbra (Hana Malasan) scolds her latest protege, 13 (Aurora Ribero), for hesitating during the battle because of what Umbra calls “collateral damage.” While Umbra goes off on another mission, 13 is sent back to Jakarta for psychological recovery. After a few weeks, 13 gets stir crazy waiting for her latest mission, and makes friends with local boy Monji (Ali Fikry), taking care of his sad sack drug addicted mother. That mother finds herself enmeshed in drug activity run by the powerful Ariel (Andri Mashadi), which puts Monji into harms way…not a good idea when a pissed off blood thirsty assassin is just hanging around.
Tjahjanto goes for a similar approach to the Night Comes for Us in story: simple, but powerful. The issue here is that only works if the movie stays brisk and keeps moving. This one goes for Wick Chapter 4 levels of epic, really blowing out the runtime, hoping the action will escalate along with the drama. However, the story never quite gels the way Timo wants it to. Splitting up Umbra and 13 hampers the emotional drama, trapping Umbra in what essentially becomes sequel filler that may or may not come. It’s an extra 30-45 minutes that would have been better spent having Umbra try to teach 13 during her fraught state after the opening mission, making the big finale clash mean something much more personal and rewarding. The Shadow Strays should have been smart enough to know to get in and out and complete the mission as efficiently as possible, but I guess sometimes more bodies have to hit the floor.
And hit those floors they do. Many times. In many different body parts. Tjahjanto’s a master at this point at crafting a stellar action sequence, and The Shadow Strays is filled with one great one after another. The fight frequency is also pretty high for a long film, meaning just as we catch our breath, someone looked at 13 the wrong way and we’re back in it. Timo’s great skill is finding new ways to bloody someone up, like say, dragging a leg across a broken car window, or an insane Checkov’s calling card for how to slice someone open with a sword. Aurora Ribero and Hana Malasan show that a great bloody action drama isn’t just the realm of men either: the pair of them mow down anyone who gets in their way, with improvised electricity and pizazz. The movie is building to the teacher/student battle of course, and thankfully that visceral battle ebbs and flows in that bloody ballet way only the great martial artists can pull off like these two. 140 minutes of mayhem could be exhausting in most films, but in The Shadow Strays, there’s an energy in the air that propels the blood off the screen, and through your body, demanding you put down your phone and watch…or else.
There’s a capper too that demands more Shadow Strays to come. There’s enough meat on that bone, and a great cameo to boot, that would make me happily jump into another demonic dance with Timo and his crazy band of loyal Indonesian action stars. For all that dumb money Netflix usually throws around, this one is a good investment, getting more eyes on some of the best action players in the business working today, swords, guns, and blood capsules in tow.