Headshot, the title sounds about right, but the tone is far more brutal. Indonesian martial arts Superstar Iko Uwais stars as Ishmael/Abdi. A hit man who gets his head shot for trying to leave his crime family, however he survives and is nursed back to health by Ailin a beautiful doctor. Upon waking up he loses all memory of his life prior getting shot, and takes the name Ishmael. But just as life begins to look great for Ishmael his past, his evil step father Lee, begins to hunt him anew.
Headshot is not for the faint of heart, it is one of the most brutal martial arts expositions ever shown on TV, I dare say it's almost scary most times, example is a tumb in the throat, very graphic in full detail, and also the most brutal use of an ak47 I've ever seen.
The story though not new, is told in a fresh new way. Where his memories don't actually move the plot but rather the actions in the present make up the entire plot. It's a story about romance and family, though the family consists of evil siblings, it's a sort of good prodigal son approach. Not much in the way of twists and cliffhangers, all that is in the fights. Fights that contain twists and cliffhangers is what makes Headshot an epic action movie, the best of 2017/2018.
Headshot was directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel aka the Mo Brothers. Oddly they have never directed an action movie before. The script was written by Timo in two and half weeks and Iko Uwais led the fight choreography for the movie for another 3 weeks given each fighter his own unique fighting style according to the background story of the character. So expect to see an exhibition of Silat, wushu, Murray Thai and straight up brawling.
5 Reasons To See This Movie
1) Iko Uwais: excellent martial artist and choreographer, what he lacks in flashyness he makes up for in brutality.
2) Story: very fresh take on the memory loss plot line. Plus it's also like a prodigal son story.
3) Fight Choreography: this movie has fight scenes that will keep at the edge of your seat, and will make your girl scream like she saw a horror screen from The Conjouring (a horror movie)
4) Great Characters: the bad guys are excellent, you will have genuine worry and fear for the well being of the hero. A diverse selection of evil, cruel martail artists.
5) It's Not Hollywood: Hollywood makes incredible movies but it's really watered down in one way or the other or studio politics comes into play and makes a barely applaudable movie that even the director would disown, claiming that his vision was altered in the editing room. See the mess that was Fantastic Four, Sucide Squad, Justice League, that's an extreme example though. But the Asian cinema is pure and true is doing action movies better than anyone right now. A great example of the best of Asian action cinema is Headshot.
8/10
I wish the love story was better though.
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