Furies (2022) User Reviews

Jam-packed package

[lotekguy-1 · 7/10 · 24 March 2023]

There have been many action flicks with kick-ass females at the center. On the wholesome glitzy side, Charlie's Angels. Andy Sedaris cluttered the 80s landscape with a slew of soft-core pornish outings for Dona Speir and a bevy of hunks and silicone-enhanced babes as super government agents. (James Bondage, anyone?) Others from here and abroad - especially several East Asian countries - have ranged from the serious to moderately sexy to outright spoofs. This one lands at the grittiest end of the spectrum, and does so with an above-average plot and cast.

A Saigon woman rescues three young women and trains them to take down Saigon's biggest psycho gang leader, who deals drugs, runs casinos and clubs, and - worst of all - abuses and traffics young women. The trio have their own traumas and find both sisterhood and purpose in their mission.

The three are quite attractive and often shown in skimpy, yet still PG-13ish, outfits. But they're at their peak in the training and fighting sequences. No idea if any of them are real martial artists, but they look very convincing in combat.

Nothing gets soft-pedaled here. There's no nudity, and most of the sex is forced, not romantic. It's also as gory as any contemporary male-dominated productions.

Veronica Ngo stars, directs and co-wrote. Her real co-star is fight choreographer Kefi Abrikh. He'd done the same with Ngo as the star of 2019's Furie, for which this is a prequel. No need to have seen that to enjoy this one. When you're looking for this type of guilty-pleasure flick, Furies delivers on all counts.

pretty entertaining

[LetsReviewThat26 · 6/10 · 5 April 2023]

Furies was a good movie. I have yet to see the sequal but i can tell from this that it must be good. Furies is the first netflix original from vietnam. And i think it was a good star. It has good slick action and a fighting style that blends in well. The movie is also a little sad in some ways with the subject mater and films of rape are said upon. The movie is all about this young girl and after a childhood incident she is found by this woman that takes her in and decides to train her along with two other girls. All three have great characters and acting and it is entertaining to watch. The revenge element works well and overall furies was a pretty good movie.

A superior successor

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 25 March 2023]

Another female-driven action film and a lot better than the ones Hollywood has been putting out recently (I can't even remember the title of the lame offering with Karen Gillan). This one is spearheaded by Veronica Ngo, who appeared in the earlier FURIE, which is only loosely linked to this movie. I thought the earlier film was fine but hampered by a low budget, and the good news is that things have been ramped up a lot here. There are multiple heroines and lavish fight scenes featuring them tackling huge rooms and long corridors full of marauding gangsters. The plot is workable, the emotion heartfelt, and there are even some good surprise twists along the way.

Impressive Work Out of Vietnam

[tkdlifemagazine · 6/10 · 8 April 2023]

This is an impressive "prequel" to Vietnam's martial arts thriller, Fury-although it could easily be a stand alone project. It is a violent, female driven martial arts thriller about a group of young women in Vietnam looking to equalize the sex trafficking violence of a controlling gang. There is more to the story's in any martial arts movie, revenge plays a major role. Not many Vietnamese martial arts, action movies get air time in the west so it is cool and exciting that this one has. It is deserved. It is crafted in filmmaking styler of The Raid and other Indonesian martial arts films. The fight choreography and violence are fun to watch. The use of color and cinematography make this watchable. The heart of it is the underdog nature of the leading characters.

Strong Film Fighting the Patriarchy

[icocleric · 7/10 · 25 March 2023]

I really enjoyed this film a lot, even from the smaller details like cinematography of the bold colours throughout the film, and the 90s music. The main character is the quiet type, but I loved how the voice over of her inner thoughts got some of the plot and her emotions across.

The story is really cool, I did love the female empowerment of girls bonding, and literally fighting the patriarchy because of the men who are putting girls like them through awful situations. There are forced sex scenes in this film, but they actually are plot relevant, because there's a lot of revenge in this film.

The action is very good, everyone looked comfortable with the martial arts, and fighting. The pacing seemed good, and the balance between action and plot seemed nice. Overall very enjoyable film.

Allright action.

[stellan-sjolin · 5/10 · 23 March 2023]

Well, its above the average netflix production. Does not say that much tho.. Acting is ok, story is fairly intresting, you do care for the characters. Action scenes are lackning sadly enough, could have gotten one or two stars more if they were good. Only one of the main characters that really pulls it of. But I absolutly love the dirty 90's neon city center, full of the fumes from cars, industry and cigaretts (Yeah, smoking is bad, but it adds to the atmosphere). Really well made that.

Mixed feelings about the strong women approach, I do very much approve of it, and some elements are very good (wont elaborate that one because of spoilers). But you cant really shake the feeling that somone in the production has a thing for young skinny girls.

Worth two hours of your time, but you probaly wont remember it in a few days.

Good old fashioned femme fatale action movie...

[paul_haakonsen · 6/10 · 31 March 2023]

When I sat down to watch the 2023 Vietnamese action crime thriller "Thanh Soi" (aka "Furies"), it was without ever having heard about it. However, that hardly mattered, because I liked the movie's cover, and also with it being an Asian movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I would give the movie a chance.

Writers Nha Uyen Ly Nguyen, Veronica Ngo, Nguyen Truong Nhan, Nguyen Ngoc Thach and Aaron Toronto put together a nice enough script and storyline for the movie. It made for some good old fashioned femme fatale entertainment. There is a lot of action, both shooting and fighting, throughout the 109 minutes that the movie ran for.

Given my lack of familiarity with the Vietnamese cinema, then I wasn't really familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. I was familiar with a single actor, the henchman with the spiky hair, though I don't know his name.

I have to say that I was genuinely entertained by "Thanh Soi", from star to end, so thumbs up to director Veronica Ngo for that accomplishment.

If you enjoy a good action movie, where you just lean back and enjoy the action, then you should give "Thanh Soi" a chance.

My rating of "Thanh Soi" lands on a six out of ten stars.

Not a patch on Furie.

[chand-suhas · 4/10 · 26 March 2023]

Furies deals with three vigilante killers put together as a team by Jacqueline to bring down a crime syndicate. As the story is set in the past, the narrative resorts to a grim tone right from the beginning painting the town run by brutal, women trafficking, drug peddling crime syndicate. The three girls too are wronged by men and humiliated by the society making it easier to train them as a team to achieve the goal of Jacqueline. Will they achieve it forms rest of the story.

The problem with Furies is it sticks to one tone, a grim one and tries harder to narrate a messy screenplay. The three characters despite all the pain they went through in the past hardly leave an impression neither any of the villains stand out. The action set pieces remain the sole saving grace considering when the action stops, the drama gets tedious. As there is no attempt to break the monotony, the motorcycle action scene goes down due to poor vfx.

The third act blows up with a lengthy action scene and a surprising twist. On paper this might sound better but what happens on screen, loses it's impact. Even the final reveal doesn't really explain how or why this character could simply turn out to be the very person she dreaded. The ambition to turn this into a credible franchise is visible but with hardly any memorable characters, the film suffers a lot.

Criminally underrated...!!!

[PANDIAN120621 · 6/10 · 13 March 2024]

A super predictable plot with some amazing stunts sequence especially the motorcycle one was top notch...While the Antagonist being too funky & not well written or strong enough to compete the powerhouse women in the lead...

The emotional counterpart were pretty decent enough and the camera work behind every stunts was futile enough to make a one time decent...watch

Also when the girls train with gun and become pro at shooting guns while fighting? Why would they throw the guns away and just use knives to fight?

While the main woman character turns out to be an anti hero seems to be a disaster for the flick and this silly mistake made fun of the climax...

A prequel to Vietnamese superstar Veronica Ngo's action film Furie is considered to be a first Netflix Vietnamese original flick... Overall an average movie to passout your boredom.

Trigger Warning: A Lot of S*xual Assault

[v-86934 · 1/10 · 19 April 2023]

I got no issues with the movie production & cinematography but there's too many s*xual scene and r*pe in only first few minutes of the movie and that make me feel sick. Trigger warning on s*xual assault it can be mentally distress for some viewers! I wish I never step foot or even try to on view this movie I feel sick and instantly loss the will to watch the movie. I give my biggest disappointment to the director this movie made me feel like he's sick in his brain or something. How inconsiderate to repeat s*xual assault scene in the first 7 mins of the movie. Shame on you and your castings crew!

Full on Vietnamese action

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 29 March 2023]

Shortly after this film, set in '90s Saigon, opens young Bi is attacked by one of her mother's clients. In the ensuing fight her mother is killed and she kills her attacker. Living on the streets of Saigon is dangerous and she is taken under the wing of Jacqueline, a woman who is also looking after two other girls, Hong and Thanh. They are trained to fight so they can defend themselves and others. One day, when they are considered ready, Jacqueline has them take on a gang that is abusing women. This will lead to fighting with martial arts, knives and guns and a climax that features a surprising twist.

If you are a fan of the action genre this is definitely worth watching. The action starts in the opening scenes and rarely lets up until the credits roll. This action is full on and nicely varied. There are some effects used, a fight on motorbikes would be impossible without them, but for the most part they aren't too obvious. The fights are all fairly gruelling and one constantly feels that out heroines are in real danger. We know deep down that three women couldn't take down scores of gangsters but while caught up in the action it isn't too hard to suspend ones disbelief. The camerawork is highly kinetic giving the viewer the feeling that they are almost in the action at times. The cast does a solid job; sometimes the villains are a bit OTT but this is clearly a deliberate choice. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to fans of the action genre.

These comments are based on watching the film in Vietnamese with English subtitles.

Better than the first film.

[BA_Harrison · 8/10 · 29 March 2023]

Veronica Ngo, star of Furie, plays Jacqueline, who rescues three young women from a tough life on the streets, training the girls to defend themselves against nasty, sex-mad men. When ready, Jacqueline sends the trio -- Thanh (Toc Tien), Hong (Rima Thanh Vy) and Bi (Dong Anh Quynh) -- on a mission to wipe out a gang of human traffickers, who are led by the despicable 'Mad Dog' Hai (Thuan Nguyen). After risking their lives doing so, Bi becomes suspicious of Jacqueline's real motives...

I felt that the Vietnamese action film Furie (2019) suffered from serious pacing issues: the finale was great, but the fight scenes leading up to it were sporadic and not handled very well. This sequel-in-name-only, directed by its star Ngo, remedies that issue, with regular bouts of adrenaline-pumping action, each set-piece wilder than the one before. Ngo is perhaps a little too ambitious at times, such as with the motorbike/moped chase that suffers from some noticeably weak visual effects, but that still doesn't prevent it from being fun -- in some ways, the rather cartoonish look of that particular sequence suits the outrageousness of the action unfolding before our eyes.

Ngo certainly handles the film's martial arts scenes like a seasoned pro, the complex choreography and kinetic camerawork combining to deliver plenty of excitement; the director has clearly been studying the great action movies of recent years, with close-quarter combat scenes reminiscent of The Raid 2 and Oldboy. Ngo also gives the whole affair a wonderfully gaudy, comic-book aesthetic, befitting the rather trashy storyline: the entire film is drenched in neon lighting and there is some nice use of De Palma-style split-screen.

7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb. A marked improvement over Furie -- I would definitely welcome another Furies film with Ngo at the helm.

Live action choreography, which is sorely lacking in Hollywood.

[prisoner404 · 10/10 · 1 April 2023]

I won't write a long review because what I love most about Asian action movies is the lively fight choreography. It is so cool that it covers any minuses. I'd love to watch those nimble brutal fights for hours. Without tedious Hollywood chatter, without heaps of computer graphics, without actors who do not like to wallow on a dirty floor, fill bumps, taking fabulous money for pathetic semblances of stunts and fights. I sincerely respect Western dramatic art, artistic design solutions, but the genre of a real karate action movie in the European and Western world is dying out. I bow to the stuntmen and fighters of the Vietnamese and Indonesian action movies. They give all their best for little money, show a real naturalistic spectacle. "Fury", Furies", "Raid", "The Night Comes for Us", "Headshot" 2016 are mega-cool works. Taking this opportunity, I express huge gratitude to their directors, actors, stuntmen. You are awesome guys! I appreciate your work! I would like to thank the actresses and authors of this film separately. I gave "The Furies" a score of 10/10 for only one choreography. The genre and style of such cinematography needs special support. It's sad that the audience gives such films low ratings , without making allowances for budget, genre, and living work. Let it not abstruse scenarios, not deep dramas, and pompous fantasy, but this is what most modern Hollywood action films lack.

Very entertained! Brutal and intense Vietnamese film

[JeffDamulira · 10/10 · 27 March 2023]

The development of the story starts with the trauma of the childhood upbringing of the core cast of this film, which leads to unexpected plots and transitions that shocked me. However, the mysterious women that was supposed to tackle corruption and evil gangsters, ends up with a taint of corruption. The main leading cast were charismatic and captivating; good actors and actresses in the screen. Moreover, the way this film was directed with one voice speaking in the background to describe the various scenes and rivals was riveting. In the other hand, the last female fighting scenes was mad entertaining with reflexes and Wing Chun style that reminds me of Keanu Reeves in The Matrix and Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon: very intense. Also, didn't expect the main characters to clash against each other, which was a interesting twist.