By Did you know that The Raid: Redemption director Gareth Evans co-directed a short for the upcoming V/H/S/2? It’s true, and it’s freaking awesome. It’s by far the best part of either V/H/S film, so I was extremely excited when I got a chance to talk to him and Timo Tjahjanto, who co-directed. We talked about their short, of course, and the full interview transcript will be up early next week, but we also talked about what’s coming up for the two of them. Right now, Gareth (I can call him that; I asked) is deep in the production of The Raid 2: Berandal, and he gave a few vague but goddamn tantalizing details about the direction the project is heading:
We’ve got about another month and a half left to shoot. It’s going good so far. We’re kind of taking the film in a slightly different direction. So we have the same action discipline and the same sort of action beats, but we’re changing up how we shoot it. We’re going a little bit more cinematic on this one, and sort of like expanding the universe.
In practical terms, I have no idea what that means, but I like the idea of going bigger both from a narrative standpoint and from a technical standpoint. The original film was amazing and insane and I rewatch it every so often to remind myself that action cinema is still alive and kicking, but more of that in that same way would just be disappointing. The second film needs to up the stakes on every level, and it sounds like it’s going to do that.
I’m so freaking excited.