If nothing else, a Timo Tjahjanto movie is guaranteed to blow your hair back. That’s the only phrase that evokes the feeling of being pinned to your seat by the hurricane-like force of the Indonesian filmmaker's action scenes, which hit hard and kick harder in bone-shattering displays of hyper-kinetic ultraviolence. Tjahjanto also makes horror movies, and his approach to the two genres is largely the same. His style marries martial-arts kineticism and splatter-film overkill, and its intensity has proven impactful in recent years (the director’s influence is all over Monkey Man, for example).
Excess is the only real imperative in Tjahjanto’s movies, which raises the question: How can he ever possibly keep topping himself, year after year? He takes a two-pronged approach in his latest, The Shadow Strays, the second title produced under Tjahjanto’s multi-film deal with Netflix. There are the action scenes, of course, which are just as gobsmacking here as they were in 2017’s The Night Comes For Us. Then there’s the epic runtime of the movie itself: 144 minutes of action melodrama, split among multiple characters scattered all over Asia.
The story begins in Japan, where a cozy night in for a yakuza boss turns into a symphony of flashing blades and arterial spray as a pair of assassins infiltrate his compound. Their agency, the Shadow organization, has a reputation much like that of the ninjas of yore. They specialize in quietly slipping in and out of murder scenes unnoticed, although the masked killers are skilled enough in hand-to-hand combat that they can easily fend off a dozen yakuza bodyguards in black suits and skinny ties.
When one of the Shadows is accidentally unmasked, her opponent is shocked to find out that his adversary is a woman—a touch that feels a bit retrograde, given how ubiquitous female assassins have become in action movies. But the reveal is still badass, so we’ll let it slide. The all-female Shadows are trained not to feel any kind of emotion towards killing or humanity in general, which does put a gender-neutral cast on what follows when 17-year-old Shadow trainee 13 (Aurora Ribero) loses her nerve on the Japan job and is grounded in Jakarta.
There, she befriends an 11-year-old boy named Monji (Ali Fikry), which has the opposite effect of what 13’s mentor Umbra (Hana Malasan) was hoping would happen when 13 went home for a while. Rather than cool off, 13 stops taking the emotion-regulating pills provided to her by the Shadows, and grows increasingly volatile after Monji’s mother is murdered and the boy is kidnapped by a local crime syndicate. This forces Umbra to return early from a mission abroad to collect the girl, who she regards partially as a rebellious daughter and partially as an insubordinate soldier. There’s no hint of women’s “innate softness” or “emotional natures” in their dynamic—it’s more like the romanticized camaraderie of a Hong Kong “heroic bloodshed” classic, which is refreshing.
That being said, 13 breaking bad is where The Shadow Strays really starts to get messy. This is good in some ways: A nightclub massacre scene is practically a requirement in this subgenre, but the one in this film is especially outrageous. But there are some downsides, too, mostly structural ones. The subplot that gives the film its title is underdeveloped, for example, which is hard to justify given the extended runtime. Characters frequently pause to explain their motivations in the style of a James Bond villain. The balance between the electrifying action scenes and, well, everything else in the movie is unsteady, rendering exposition and dialogue scenes lethargic by comparison. Often we feel as if we’re just waiting to get back to the carnage, and it feels like it’s taking forever.
But the carnage, it should be re-stated, does not disappoint. Creative methods of killing and maiming are Tjahjanto’s specialty, and they fly at the viewer—he really should make a 3-D movie—at a furious pace. One standout comes late in the film, in a scene where 13 is slaughtering a van full of Shadows lackeys. She kicks a man in the chest, and he hurtles backwards. Her intent is to impale his head on a nail sticking out of a nearby post, killing him instantly. She’s off by a few millimeters, however, and the nail goes through his cheek instead. So she roundhouse kicks him from the side, and the impact rips his cheek off.
As long as Timo Tjahjanto keeps coming up with moments like these, we’ll keep lining up to see his movies. The real question is whether everything around those moments will continue to be worth the wait.
Director: Timo Tjahjanto
Writer: Timo Tjahjanto
Starring: Aurora Ribero, Hana Pitrashata Malasan
Release Date: October 17, 2024 (Netflix)
