[Sundance Interview] Gareth Evans (Director of The Raid 2: Berandal)
[Ruby Hornet will be at Sundance Film Festival 2014 providing coverage of the festival's 30th year. Keep it tuned to Ruby Hornet this week as we share reviews, interviews, photos, and more at one of the country's largest film festivals.]
It's no secret that I and the majority of the Ruby Hornet staff are huge fans of Gareth Evans' The Raid: Redemption. The sleeper hit made major waves across film communities with its unabashed love for martial arts and tight storytelling that complemented the action rather than took away from it. Redemption was the little film that could, making more than 20x its budget, as well as garnering very favorable reviews from critics. When The Raid 2: Berandal was announced, excitement over the expansion of the film ran high, with many salivating at the promise of "more," in all senses of the term (budget, runtime, characters, fight scenes, etc.). My review highly regarded Evans' second film of the franchise, Berandal representing everything right when it comes to a film sequel.
During Sundance, I had a chance to sit down the director himself alongside a few other esteemed film journalists as we racked his brain with questions ranging from how fight scenes were planned, the editing process for the film, his influences behind Berandal, and much more. If you were a huge fan of The Raid: Redemption and can't wait until The Raid 2: Berandal hits theaters next March, I highly recommend reading through the interview for more insight behind one of the year's most anticipated films. However, a word to the wise: there are Berandal spoilers, so be cautious!
Gareth Evans shares plans for The Raid 3
[Ruby Hornet will be at Sundance Film Festival 2014 providing coverage of the festival's 30th year. Keep it tuned to Ruby Hornet this week as we share reviews, interviews, photos, and more at one of the country's largest film festivals.]
The Raid 2: Berandal was my most anticipated film of this year's Sundance Film Festival. As you may have realized after reading my review of the film, it was everything a proper film sequel should be, expanding upon the framework that was established in The Raid: Redemption. Following my screening of the film, I had the chance to take part in a roundtable interview with the film's writer/director/editor Gareth Evans.
While many things were discussed (which you'll be able to read when the full interview is released next week), the most noteworthy bit of information involved Evans' plans for the third film in the series. While the script hasn't been written yet, Evans has an idea of what the film will be about. In saying that, do keep in mind that the information might be considered a spoiler for The Raid 2: Berandal, so continue on at your own expense.
When asked about the proposed The Raid 3, Evans had the following to say:
It's set three hours before The Raid 2 finishes, so there's a key moment in The Raid 2 where we go back and revisit that scene, and as a result of that, we branch off. We go into a totally different direction. That's as much as I can say right now. [...] There are people involved in the second [film] that we expand a lot more on in the third... which is probably pretty obvious now because most of the fuckers die in the second.
It's vague information, especially for the majority of you that haven't seen the film. However, within the context of having seen the film, I can't stress enough how excited I am for the third film armed with this knowledge (as if my excitement wasn't already at an all-time high after seeing Berandal). We have much more exclusive content from Sundance 2014, so be sure to follow Ruby Hornet over the next week.