The Protector 2 vs The Raid 2
It was a simpler time for me; about 2 weeks ago when I realised that the two men vying for the title as the Best Martial Artist Alive were to release new films in the same month. Stupidly, I thought I could compare the two and dub a winner once and for all.
In retrospect this was a one-sided battle of Godzilla vs Rango proportions…
Poor old Tony Jaa. When Ong Bak arrived his name was emailed and smsed with messages exclaiming ‘you gotta check this guy out’. Iko Uwais arrived in the era of tweets – which helped get his name out quicker – and furthermore he was able to back up his moves with embedded clips from the movies!
With sequels to what were well received first films arriving simultaneously, it’s only fair that comparisons be made. It also helps that there are many similarities in the films – as the list below will illustrate.
What does NOT help The Protector 2, is watching both films in quick succession, which is the equivalent of seeing a ‘regular’ attractive girl wander past followed by Miranda Kerr…
Nonetheless I will soldier on and compare the pair across ten carefully selected categories, with the winner granted the title of reigning Master of Martial Arts.
1/ The Hero: Rama (Iko Uwais) vs Kham (Tony Jaa)
Rama is a rookie cop forced deep undercover to infiltrate the Indonesian crime underworld. Kham is a simple country elephant tender whose charges keep getting stolen from under his nose.
Winner – The Raid 2
2/ Bad Guy: Crime Lord (RZA) vs Crime Lord (some guy)
With a faceless evil bad guy in Raid 2 this was RZA’s spot to lose. And lose it he does. Badly. For a guy who so obviously loves martial arts films RZA practically spits in the face of the genre with his reprehensibly lazy performance. He must’ve seen The Raid 2 by now, I guarantee when he did he threw up in his mouth.
Winner – The Raid 2
3/ Recycled actor: Little fat bald guy (Protector 2) vs Homeless Guy / Mad Dog (The Raid 2)
Another gimme. Mad Dog made you root for the bad guy in the first Raid. He could only be beaten by two guys and even then only with dirty tricks. His return as Homeless Assassin is more low key, yet he still has one dominating scene in which he decimates a horde of goons in a nightclub.
Little fat bald guy has about four jokes that fall flat and clumsily flounders his way through his only action sequence.
Winner – The Raid 2
4 / Best Fight: Any fight in the Raid vs All fights in Protector combined
Every fight in the Raid is a varying degree of awesome. You could pick any one of them and they would inevitably crush the best fight in the Protector; mainly because the Protector has no sequence that could be dubbed ‘Best Fight’. Even Psy had one hit.
Winner – The Raid 2
5 / Best Unnamed Action Chick: #20 (Protector) vs Hammer-Girl (Raid)
With the grand unveiling as a slender and shapely woman clad in only strips of red PVC, #20 at least had an ‘arrival’ of note. Then Hammer-Girl calmly took her pair of claw hammers from her handbag, and without even removing her Bono-Fly sunglasses walked deliberately toward half a subway car full of menacing bodyguards.
Stop – Hammer-Girl time…
Winner – The Raid 2
Pause: Please The Protector 2. Give us SOMETHING!!!
6 / Plot
Man recovers elephant and clears name (Protector) vs Man goes undercover to rip apart organised crime from inside (Raid)
Ummmm… Like, I’m all for the animals and stuff, but…
Winner – The Raid 2
7 / Directing Flair
The Raid uses long unbroken sequences with intricately choreographed action and deliberate tension developing build ups. The Protector 2 thinks its biggest asset needs help from cut priced computer effects and lets the RZA run riot in an indulgent display of poor judgment.
Winner – The Raid 2
8 / The Action
Look. If it isn’t obvious by now…
Winner – The Raid 2
9 / Worst Bit
The only bad thing I can say about The Raid 2 is that it’s slightly too long and not quite as impactful as its predecessor. The Protector 2 has the poor quality all around, terrible characters, a shockingly derivative plot, and a god-awful finale.
But the ‘Flame filled room’ tho… that is some abominable shit.
Winner – The Raid 2
10 / Entertainment Value
This is the heavyweight championship of the world and the so-called ‘contender’ has gone down after touching gloves.
Winner – The Raid 2
The Future
The result of this could in reality colour how we view the career of Tony Jaa. He no longer has any hope of being the modern day Jackie Chan, nor even a wannabe Jet Li. If his manager has even a hint of the best intentions for his client’s career he will be calling Gareth Evans and pleading for either a film of his own or a ‘Mad Dog’ type role in The Raid 3.
He should write to Jackie Chan and ask sincerely for a look at his scrap book to try to come up with some fresh and innovative ideas. At 60 plus even the great Jackie Chan cannot use them anymore.
At 38 Tony Jaa’s ‘career’ is broken, and right at the age when even the most physically gifted start to succumb to gravity. He is a potentially great product that needs fixing urgently. A high jumping, high kicking, sharp elbowed dynamo with untapped skills who has not yet met a man who can unleash them.
In essence it is in Tony Jaa’s best interests to scrap any career plan that he has thus far developed. He should stop having any input in his own scripts, should turf Fat little bald guy and offer himself up as a wildly athletic ball of action clay for any competent director to do what they will with.
At 31 Iko Uwais is younger and has already met his Pharrell Williams – the man who frees him up to do what he does best. My advice to him would be ‘it ain’t broke, so don’t fix it’.
This might change if the product quality deteriorates, but he has already headlined the two best martial arts films in a decade and is apparently already up to his eyebrows in prep for The Raid 3.
If he can Statham his way through the next decade and churn out another half dozen films even half as good as the first two Raids, that will be a solid outcome.
And if Tony Jaa can high kick Father Time and get back to the form of Ong Bak, then we will all be winners.
OGR
what about Ong Bak 1 vs Merantau?
Thanks for taking the time to comment. As luck would have it I have reviewed both Ong Bak and Merantau here previously.
In short, while Merantau shows the potential of one young man, Ong-Bak is a showcase of an unparalleled athletic talent. Unfortunately for Tony Jaa, he has never made a film (bar the staircase scene in The Protector) that has used his abilities nearly as well. On the flipside, Iko Uwais has gone from strength to strength.
Out of these two films I would watch Ong-Bak before Merantau, but I know which of the two lead actors I am looking forward to seeing in a new film more. Much more.
I hope you are jokinh cause this is the most bullshit thing ive read in my entire life i bet youre indonesian youre bias af
Thanks for taking the time to read, even if you obviously disagree.
Given that this was over a year ago I re-read my comparison and no, I wasn’t joking for a split second. Furthermore I am more than willing to take your bet, I am not Indonesian, nor even Asian. Not sure for a second why that would even be relevant anyway; even if I were Thai, I wouldn’t be foolish enough to watch these two films and pretend for a second that The Protector could hold a candle to The Raid.
And I think I am by no means alone. Good luck trying to contact every person on the planet who thought The Raid 2 a better film. I hope your hastily penned negativity manages to convince us all that we were wrong (it won’t).
Still, by all means fly whatever flag you think you are flying, and again thanks sincerely for stopping by.