‘The Shadow Strays’ Review – Timo Tjahjanto Takes No Prisoners with Gory, Ultraviolent Actioner [TIFF]
Writer/Director Timo Tjahjanto (May the Devil Take You, The Night Comes For Us, V/H/S/2) approaches his action features the same way he does horror: full throttle. There’s no coming up for air in a Tjahjanto joint; the filmmaker goes for the jugular and immerses audiences in a violent sensory assault. So much so that it’s […]
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Writer/Director Timo Tjahjanto (May the Devil Take You, The Night Comes For Us, V/H/S/2) approaches his action features the same way he does horror: full throttle. There’s no coming up for air in a Tjahjanto joint; the filmmaker goes for the jugular and immerses audiences in a violent sensory assault. So much so that it’s difficult not to see the overlap between genres. That’s certainly the case in The Shadow Strays, an actioner so propulsive in its ultraviolence that its constant barrage of carnage holds you firm in its grip and all but begs to be seen with the rowdiest crowd possible.
The Shadow Strays gets the pulse-pounding straight away, with an intense assassination attempt in Japan that leaves a pile of bodies on the floor and a thrilling amount of arterial spray. It also ends in failure for the assassin-in-training at the center of the carnage, a 17-year-old with the codename 13 (Aurora Ribero). 13’s mission failure gets her suspended, and she is sent to Jakarta to wait for reassignment or proof that she can stay on task without pausing for collateral damage. A move that’ll prove 13’s handlers right when the erstwhile assassin meets 11-year-old Monji (Ali Fikry), who loses his mother to a nasty crime syndicate and sets out to rescue him. Naturally, 13 will carve a path straight to trouble.
