Movie Review – Furies

Furies (Thanh Sói - Cúc dại trong đêm)

Vietnam (2022) Dir. Veronica Ngo

Revenge thrillers featuring women seeking retribution against the patriarchy and general misogyny has slowly become a subgenre in its own right within the action movie milieu, more so post #MeToo. Of course, if we chaps weren’t such swines in the first place this wouldn’t be necessary.

Bi is a young girl living with her prostitute mother Lai on a houseboat. When a drunken client drops in when Lai is out, he rapes Bi, with Lai returning in time to save Bi, but the man kills her and sets the boat alight. Bi kills the man then runs away to Ho Chi Minh City, where she spends the next few years living on the streets, until, as a teen (Đồng Ánh Quỳnh), she is taken in by Jacqueline aka Lin (Veronica Ngo).

Lin lives with two teen girls, Thanh (Tóc Tiên) and Hong (Rima Thanh Vy), both survivors of sexual assault. Angered by the sex trafficking criminals continually get away with, Lin trains the girls to be vicious fighters to get justice on behalf of abused women. Lin’s target is psychotic gang leader Mad Dog Hai (Thuận Nguyễn), who rules the streets via hostile takeovers.

Apparently the first ever Vietnamese production for Netflix, Furies is a prequel to a 2019 film Furie which I have not seen but would like to after viewing this grisly, action-packed outing. This might be one of the rare occasions where one can watch the prequel without having seen the “original” film first, with the ending neatly leading those who know into what happens next whilst the rest of us are left to wonder what that exactly is.

Curiously however, co-writer, director, and star of Furies, Veronica Ngo plays the lead in Furie but under a different character name, making Furie even more enticing to discover, whilst for returning audiences it must be a little confusing to see the same actress in a different role in a supposedly related story - quite an unusual move.

Now, I need to explain about an early scene that might be off putting for some, namely the rape of young Bi. It isn’t explicit, the closest being one very wide shot of the act; however, the camera does hold on Bi’s numbed face as her body is jolted by the man’s thrusts. It all runs for about ten seconds but it is enough to be upsetting.

Thankfully, this is not repeated, only verbal references to underage sex are made by the criminals to reiterate their uncouth nastiness and regard for others as pawns in their seedy power games. If there is a weak point of the script it is how much of a caricature the villains are - loud, brash, overconfident, amoral, tattooed punks, prone to sneering and juvenile tantrums over the slightest thing.

Mad Dog Hai may look like a boy band member, which is quite the aesthetic choice, but his behaviour is anything but. He has surrounded himself by the usual collection of low life minions - Son (Gi A Nguyễn), the hired muscle, Long (Song Luân), his drug dealing operative and Teo runs his prostitution racket - who have served Hai well in his takeover of the local territories from other gangsters.

Using a noodle shop as a front, Lin trains the girls regularly and hard in close combat, hand weapons, and the Vietnamese martial art of Vovinam. Thanh is the oldest; She sold herself to pay for medical care for a sick sibling who died, and ended up being passed around brothels until Lin saved her. Hong, who turns 19 during the film, was a victim of gang rape when she was found. She is the perkier one, preferring to dress up and be cute, an odd way to deal with being exploited.

Something they do which is quite refreshing is avoid showing Bi display total proficiency first time out yet not be a total bust either; she is naturally nervous at first but holds her own, except when a man is on top of her, the ghost of past experiences temporarily freezes her. This becomes her mountain to climb over the course of her missions on Lin’s behalf, but it is a revelation during the attack on Hai’s night club that throws a whole new light on the situation.

In trying to create balance and avoid being an exercise in misandry, there is a not very well explained twist that arrives midway through, in case this felt like a heavy handed feminist battle cry. A further twist in the final act is telegraphed in the scene mentioned above to propagate the doctrine of two wrongs not making a right, which would carry more weight if this wasn’t such a lawless film with no police involvement until the last section.

Yet I doubt anyone will care as the action is the main draw and this is very bountiful on that front. The cast all trained for a year prior to filming and the result are fantastic and brutal. This is hard hitting and authentic fighting a’la their Thai and Indonesian cousins, fast paced and inventive. In the final battle, a single take fight sees the camera do all the moving around them, which is unique, whilst a motorbike chase/fight is a heck of a set piece which may or may not be as CGI assisted as it looks.

Veronica Ngo does a great job as director, maintaining everything male action fans could want from the genre whilst empowering the women beyond mere totems, creating a sort of anti-Charlie’s Angels. The presentation flits between raw, visceral, dark violence and modern pop music video quite smoothly, and I dare say a new star is born in Đồng Ánh Quỳnh whilst pop singer Tóc Tiên could have a new vocation.

Prequel or not, Furies is a frantic, brutal butt-kicker of a film to entertain any action fan, as long as you can get past the uncomfortable opening and paper thin antagonists.