The Furious Review: The Best Action Movie Of 2026 Will Punch You In The Face

Looking for an adrenaline rush? Then run to the nearest theater showing Kenji Tanigaki's "The Furious," the best action movie of 2026. I know, I know: 2026 is only halfway over. But I'm completely confident that no other action flick released this year will even come close to matching the raw energy and eye-popping brutality of what Tanigaki has cooked up here.

There will be inevitable comparisons to acclaimed fight films like "The Raid" and "The Night Comes For Us." But there are times when "The Furious" feels like it's inventing a whole new language as it throws one insane action scene after another in our faces. Watching this with a packed audience hooting, hollering, cheering and guffawing at the mayhem unleashed on screen was one of the movie-going highlights of my life.

Set "Somewhere in Southeast Asia," as a title card tells us, "The Furious" tells a simple story. Indeed, it's so simple that I imagine some might find it almost non-existent. But plot is inessential to a movie like this, which wants to unleash one jaw-dropping fight scene after another. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and when people start swinging sledgehammers around, you can't help but perk up. At one point, two characters pick up motorcycles and swing them at each other like they're having a sword fight. How can you not be entertained by that?

At the center of all this carnage is Wang Wei (Xie Miao), a mute handyman with a mysterious past. He lives with his beloved daughter Rainy (Yang Enyou), and when he's not doing odd jobs he's teaching her how to fight — a hint of things to come. When Rainy is kidnapped by a gang of vile human traffickers, Wang launches into action. He has to: the local cops are corrupt and not willing to offer any help.

Wang won't be alone, though. He teams up with Navin (Joe Taslim), a chain-smoking smooth talker looking for his missing wife (Jeeja Yanin), a journalist who was investigating the same human trafficking ring that's abducted Rainy. Both of these men are highly capable fighters, although they each have their own unique style. While the cool and collected Navin seems more controlled, the uncaged animal that is Wang moves like lightning, sprinting around one location and seeming to defy the laws of physics (one memorable fight has him climbing up a pile of bad guys like a mountain as he smashes down at them with a hammer).

The basic set-up in place, "The Furious" moves from one action scene to the next as Wang and Navin conduct an investigation that leads them to a series of brutal fights that grow increasingly unhinged and bloody. Every villain they come across is detestable to the point where we can't wait to see our heroes beat them to a bloody pulp. The most memorable of the bad guys is Tak, played by martial arts movie mainstay Yayan Ruhian. Wielding a bow and arrow that he can use with terrifying precision, he operates like an unstoppable killing machine offering no mercy.

"The Furious" has its issues. The dialogue is clunky and the film makes a huge blunder by tacking on a pointless epilogue when it would've been better served ending a few minutes early. And sure, is it unrealistic that somehow every character in this movie is a skilled fighter? Of course, but who cares! You don't sit down to watch a movie like "The Furious" hoping for logic or realism.

By the time the big climactic fight arrives with five characters going up against each other in a police station, complete with a stylish comic book panel-like shot that superimposes all of their eyes on screen at once, you'll be howling with glee. I know I was, and so was the crowd I saw the film with (one person behind me actually started clapping).

Kenji Tanigaki's direction during the fights, combined with the intricate choreography, puts Hollywood action movies to shame. As Nicole Kidman continues to say in those AMC bumpers that really should be retired by now, "We come to this place for magic." And magic is what "The Furious" gives us. Violent, bloody, ass-kicking magic.

/Film Rating: 8 out of 10

"The Furious" opens in theaters on June 12, 2026.