Furies review: An action lover's cinematic dream

The Vietnamese female-led revenge film, Furies, premiered on Netflix this Thursday, March 23, as an ambiguous prequel to the smash-hit Furie from 2019. This Veronica Ngô-starrer film is evidently the ultimate package; it not only reunites Ngô with the cast but also elevates her role as a director, co-writer, producer, and one of the protagonists of the women-centric crime thriller.

Furies, a long-delayed Vietnamese action thriller, was wisely picked up by Netflix and dropped at a time when fans await the arrival of the highly-anticipated John Wick 4, making the perfect pair of bloody and violent gun-fu movies for the week.

The staple of martial arts movies involves chasing down generic bad guys, but occasionally, a fitting narrative makes for a decent, unexpected, and widely acceptable substitute. The Princess, Ngô's 2022 medieval fantasy martial arts team-up with Joey King, and particularly Furie, are ideal examples of her version of the "retired criminal" vengeance movie as seen in Furies.

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Furies narrates a complex tale of turning trauma into strength, only falling short on VFX

Furies recounts the tale of three young women who have been saved from wicked and obscene backgrounds with a traumatic past each by their leader Aunt Lin and trained to become ferocious and strong vigilantes on a mission to make ruthlessly vicious crimelords pay for their oppressive grasp on the world they live in. The story is set in the brutal, neon-laced streets of 1990s Saigon.

The movie stars newcomer Dong Anh Quynh as Bi, who is accompanied by singer/model turned-actress Toc Tien as brutal assassin Thanh, Rima Thanh Vy as the lively and positive Hong, Ngô as Jacqueline or Aunt Lin, and Thuan Nguyen as the enemy, Mad Dog Hai. In Furies, Ngô mostly allows her relatively new yet skilled actors to hold the reins, and they don’t disappoint.

Bi, Thanh, and Hong have spent the majority of their lives being exploited and mistreated, and Ngô utilizes their individual experiences to build a social ecosystem that transforms their weaknesses into strengths. Because it is nearly impossible for them to leave their traumatic pasts behind, the film focuses on how the characters use their pasts to their advantage.

Jacqueline portrays an intriguing figure: her purported goal is to take out Hai Cho Dien (Nguyen), a ruthless psychopath who founded a criminal organization centered around prostitution and drug trafficking. Jacqueline argues that shutting down his business will prevent many helpless women and girls from suffering the same fate as Bi, who is s*xually assaulted as a little girl in the opening scenes of the film.

The main characters of Furies are female assassins who were abandoned as children and must now confront their traumatic experiences as adults. However, it is obvious that violence is the primary focus of the film. With every sequence, the action keeps getting more and more intense.

Dong, Toc, and Rima work well together as they find a sense of family in each other and act as high-functioning action heroines with a hint of playfulness in everything they do. Dong lends the right amount of fiery wrath to her character and gives an extraordinary performance, letting loose her inner beast that is equal parts empathetic and terrifying.

However, the low-budget, computer-generated VFX is where the movie really falls short with its overall action prowess failing to reach its elite objectives due to sloppy backgrounds behind motorbike chases and downright humiliating explosions.

All in all, Furies, intentionally or not, implies in various detailed layers that women's conditions are helpless and dismal irrespective of the extent to which they struggle or succeed since they live in a society dominated by men and where sympathy for their struggles is scarce.

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Furies is now streaming on Netflix.