By: John M Jerva

Welcome to FOOT FIST FRIDAYS! A weekly dose of fight action where the Action-Flix.com experts share their thoughts on some of the greatest scenes of fisticuffs in action cinema history!

It’s Friday once again action fanatics and that means another edition of the bone crunching, blood soaked, fisticuffs filled Foot Fist Fridays and this week, I’m highliting the epic and brutally satisfying kitchen fight between Iko Uwais and Cecep Arif Rahman from The Raid 2! This scene is an aassault on the senses and showcases Uwais in all his bone shattering glory as the blood splatters to an insane degree. Enjoy!

Back in 2011, a little known action film out of Indonesia called The Raid was unleashed on the masses which starred a then not well known Iko Uwais and the movie which was pretty much Indonesia’s answer to Die Hard in a rundown apartment building came out of nowhere from a director named Gareth Evans. The film was a fever dream of blood splattering, awe inducing and relentless fight scenes that showcased what these men of Indonesia action cinema could accomplish. When I say relentless, I mean that after the action revs up there is literally no time to catch your breath as Uwais and fellow cast mates Yayan Ruhian, Joe Taslim and crew delivered the bone crunching and blood flying goods. The first film was a taut, tightly paced contained thriller in the apartment building and it has since gone on to become a virtual martial arts epic.

Then in 2014, the sequel The Raid 2 hit and where the first movie was smaller in scale, this one widened the universe that we came to know in the original and made it almost feel like an Indonesian version of The Godfather and was a staggering 2 hours and 30 minutes in length and featured even more of the insane action that we came to love.

Uwais was in fine form once again as battered cop Rama who now goes undercover in a ruthless criminal organization to help bring down the bad guys and the corrupt cops that rule the city of Jakarta with a lethal, iron fist.

The violence in the first film was staggering but in the sequel, it was maddening to the degree that it was almost like watching a horror movie with all the buckets of blood that was spilled. The fight sequencesw were also lengthy and you had to wonder, just like in a Tony Jaa film, how no one died while making this film.

I love both films and love all the fight scene but if I had to pick one that stood out for me, it would be the retaurant kitchen fight between Uwais’ Rama and Cecep Arif Rahman’s The Assassin. Mainstream action goers will certainly remember Rahman from his role in the blockbuster John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum where he and fellow Raid co-star Yayan Ruhian took on Keanu Reeves in the glorious finale. This fight is actually one that I did for my last go around at Foot Fist Fridays and you can check out that post here.

I really don’t need to go on for any length of time to defend why this scene is epic in its scope and these two cinematic warriors are at the top of their game in this scene which runs over seven minutes in length. An extended fight scene like this one is almost unheard of in Western action cinema and here Uwais and Rahman use their lethal hands, feet, bladed weapons and a variety of kitchen utensials to pummel each other in glorious fashion.

At the end of this pulsating fight, both men are covered head to toe in blood and you have to wonder how they even kept going as the scene is layered with furiously choreographed and intricate empty handed combat moves that almost defy reasoning. It truly is the stuff legends are made of and if you haven’t seen either of these two films, make sure you rectify that at once. It’s not for the faint of heart but if you love your cinematic combat layered with endless supplies of blood then these films are for you. Luckily, this is right in my wheelhouse.

Now in the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan The Destroyer, “Enough Talk!” It’s time to watch Uwais and Rahman goe toe to toe in fine brutal form in this classic scene from The Raid 2 courtesy of JoBlo.com!