Dear Ethan,

Let me guess – uncooked spaghetti wrapped in a wet towel and broken against a rusty metal pipe? A grapefruit dressed in bubble wrap and crushed in a vise? A raw chicken hung like a piñata and beaten with a tire iron?

The Raid: Redemption is certainly a visceral experience, and everyone will soon be fawning over fight choreographer and star Iko Uwais, whose elbows and knees fly in pinwheel fashion into the throats, groins, and noses of the seemingly endless army of attackers who pour into the hallways and stairwells of deathtrap apartment complex where the film takes place. But, really, it’s the sound that gives those blows their impact. And, Jesus, whatever you used to make them – chicken, grapefruit, whatever – it works.

Despite a sometimes awkward narrative structure that switches jarringly between the melodramatic A and B storylines, it’s the long fight sequences (which trade in the elegant aestheticism of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for a grimier, crueller, and much stabbier form of combat) that make the film exciting. Your wonderfully cringe-worthy foley work had me feeling the fight scenes with all six senses.

P.S. The death of the unstoppable spider-monkey henchman—a piece of canvas soaked in mushroom soup and torn in half, right?

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