KILL (India, 2024) with Matthew Highton

Oh boy we are so back and what a start as former co-host and now co-parent Matt Highton returns to help us tackle Bollywood bloodbath KILL directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat and starring  Lakshya, Raghav Juyal, Ashish Vidyarthi, Harsh Chhaya and Tanya Maniktala.
>> KILL trailer<<

We also tickle your fancy with mentions of Beetlejuicex2, Alien: Romulus, Furiosa, Hundreds Of Beavers,  Rebel Ridge, The Creator and much more waffle....

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0:14

I'm calling Deanna Fighting without fighting. Cato Bill. Dodge this. Oh, yes, we're back, buckaroos. That's what I'm labeling you for this season. It's technically and literally season four. And I am not messing around with the first episode, the Welcome Back. You thought he was dead and that I had ruthlessly murdered him after season two. And I just kept pretending he was on hiatus. But. Thanks to the miracle of $6 million and AI, a reference for both the dads and the kids, we have rebuilt him. Joining us on our first episode of the new series to talk about the Indian gore actioner kill is your old pal and mine is Mr. Matthew Highton Esquire. What a lovely introduction that was. Thank you, Simon. Lovely to be back. Lovely to be here. This is nice. Remember when we did this podcast? Yeah, I remember. It used to be me and you. It did. And then I had a child. It was difficult. And it's so weird that like doing a podcast that not that many people listen to doesn't get the sort of priority it deserves on that scale. Blame the family, man. I tried to get here. You were like... look wife. That's what you call that, right? Look wife. I just need to watch this three hour Hindi movie and then I need to talk about it for a minimum one hour with Simon. Then I need to have probably a preamble of 30 minutes to catch up with him before. All I need is half a day every two weeks. Is that too much to ask? Two fair. I have a lovely little window for watching films. It's the recording because at the moment he's at his grandma's so I can be loud. But if I'm loud when he's sleeping... Forget it. This is what every action fan wants to hear, isn't it? Because action fans are used to the repercussions of someone taking a child, but they're not used to the actual day to day of looking after a child. That's right. I know I do if my child was taken, but do I really factor in the naps and the nappies and the rest of it? I have a very specialist set of skills. I can set up a riverside studio. I can... export those files into Adobe Audition and I can edit them tightly into a neat one hour long package and upload it to a podcast. Does that get you any closer to retrieving the kidnapped child? It doesn't. No, useless. Absolutely useless in that situation it turns out. We have some client feedback for you. We've got a few changes to the message. A couple of script notes. He just makes a podcast, in fairness, in this day and age, that would be commission times 12 for Netflix, I would say. podcast that gets the child back. We probably worked on the titles, but. I'm sure there's a million. True Crime podcast turns into True Crime. I think that is now a genre. 100%. Hey, what's quite exciting though is that you're, not that your child is away, but the knock on effect of that is had I spoken to you prior to this week, you would have said, I haven't seen a movie in a year, Simon. All I've done is clean up projectile poop and vomit. But now you've only done that for your own projectile poop and vomit whilst you've been catching up on movies. Yeah. I have been hitting it hard. Give me a quick couple of top hits of things that have on your radar of late. This week, a lot of this relies on streamers, but I managed to get to the cinema a few times this month. So I have seen Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice and Romulus. Oh boy, okay. I've seen neither. I loved Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. To the point where I want to watch them back to back because I'm suspicious I might enjoy the second one more than the first one. Hey, quick question. If you say it three times, but in two separate instances like you just did. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know the law on that. I think it's probably... Let's keep it to max two at a time. Yeah. We don't have time for that. Romulus was great. This is the alien sequel, sequel. I say that, but the third act really upset me. We don't have time to go into it. But it's up there right in the middle of the Alien franchise. Maybe on par or slightly above Alien 3. Are we taking into account the prequels and stuff? The Prometheus and all those crap bags. I got banned from talking about Prometheus at home. In that case, immediate ban on the podcast. Yeah. Let's not go into it. But other things I've seen that I really enjoyed. A little podcast relevant stuff, June 2, Furiosa caught up on those, which were great. Haven't seen Furiosa yet. Lovely. Yeah. Interesting. Some very fun choices as well. And again, like the last Mad Max, just adrenaline starts to finish. I really need to revisit Fury Road because so many people just eulogise about it. And I remember seeing it in the cinema and being like, yeah, I think I like, I seem to recall liking it, but maybe not being like, oh my. cripes. It's just, it's one of those, not much happens. They drive to a place to drive back, but every frame is a painting. There's a really good series of video essays on it, on YouTube, and one of them about how Frank, is it Frank Miller is it? No, it's, not Frank Miller is it? Is it Frank Miller? It's one of the Millers. Frank Miller writes comics. They're comics, yeah. It's, oh my God, back to form. Derek Miller. Does he wear- Derek Miller. Chris Miller. I went to school with a Chris Miller. Lovely guy. Fuck my brain. I'd like to say this is George Miller. George Miller. I got so excited. I heard myself back through your headphones. Yeah. I knew it was a Miller. But yeah, about how he does centre framing and how all the action happens in the centre frame. It's very, very interesting. But if you are an action It's a very good essay. Very good essay how he tries to land everything in the centre frame, nothing on the peripherals, and it just keeps your eye focus. Very good. Other things I saw, I finally watched Ironclaw, which was also in motion. Oh my goodness. So, I watched Monkeyman. Good. Yes, I have seen that and we'll be talking about it on an upcoming episode. Well, I am available to talk about it because I I really enjoyed that. Okay. But after next week, you're not available. You're going to have to squeeze it in. Around Nips. Around Nips. I've watched The Boy and the Heron this week. I've watched Hundreds of Beavers this week, which is incredible. I've heard of it. I haven't seen it. The director, I stumbled on one of his films ages ago, The Lake Michigan Monster, and his directing style is incredible. It's just like, he clearly... a lot of composite shots and a lot of action, but he films it, he edits it, he does the VFX himself. With hundreds of beavers, it's like a level up. The only way I can describe it is like watching a live action Looney Tunes with some video game elements in. It's just a technical masterpiece done for 150,000 give or take and shot during the pandemic. I don't think there's really a proper line of dialogue in. It's all very slapstick. creativity in it. Some of the visual gangs are just sublime. There's one gag that made me literally spit take what I was drinking and go back to rewind it, to film it, to send it to someone and go, this gag is brilliant. And I never laugh out loud at anything anymore, so I need this. I need this in my life. Yeah. It's just, it's something else. It's just one of those things now as well. I think he's been plugging away for a while, just making stuff. Almost feels like he's just making stuff with friends. Yeah, yeah. And hundreds of beavers clearly a step up. Yeah. And then just due to, I was reading some there, they, I think they were trying to get distribution, but was struggling. So they took it on the road, sort of touring it at cinemas, but they still did an almost vaudeville style show where they, they do an intro and do a talk at the beginning. They were wrestling people in beaver costumes, like really good stuff. Classic film promotion. Yeah. Got a little bit of, um, heat off the back of that. And then got a little cult following, got some really huge fans and then distribution now it's on streaming and again, it's one of those films where I'm like, it will eventually on streaming for free, but I'd say get it now, pay a couple of dollars, pounds, whatever your currency is and just, yeah, give them something to make more. I've literally written a note with a pen in a notebook. Remember that? To watch that. Yeah. That's my big one. Have you watched anything nice? I was just having a quick flick through my... Letterboxd, which I'm still doing. I know you're not for the last two months. I need to update mine. I'll tell you what, the best thing I've seen recently, and it's pod adjacent, but not, I wouldn't call it full action movie, so I won't do an episode on it, a movie on Netflix called Rebel Ridge. Have you heard of this? I keep going to watch this and then just not. I watched it completely blind, knew nothing about it, but it turns out it's from the guy who directed Green Room and Blue Ruin. if you've seen those movies, both excellent, really sort of dark, Noirey, ultra-violent in parts. This is like the opposite of that. It's a really, it's like a pressure cooker, cop thriller, just really well played out, really enjoyed it. That comes with a high recommend. What else have I seen? I've seen, I saw The Creator finally recently. I love The Creator. I really, really liked it a lot. 15 minutes. Mason- Yeah, it was definitely a bit long. I thought the sort of, I guess the craft of it was incredible and I really loved the vibe and the special effects. But for some reason, it just didn't grip me on an emotional level. I don't know why that was. It felt a bit hollow. Mason- I need to rewatch it. I watched it at the cinema and again, it's such a visual treat. Mason- Yes. Mason- It's Gareth Edwards, isn't it? Mason- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's so good at crafting story around visual effects. I really enjoyed it and I want to give it another watch because I think there's stuff that I missed and didn't pick up on. But I mean, he's always been brilliant. I've loved him since Monsters. Yeah, I haven't seen that. It's just, again, for fans of indie film, read up on how they shot that. They basically And then he just like, just put the VFX on after. There's no like planning on the set. It's just like, I'll just put it on. Don't want to be pretty good at this. Yeah, I mean, it's probably still filming on DV around that time. So it's probably like film into, yeah, or you know, it'll be, yeah, cutting edge. It still looks incredible. I saw Trap. Have you seen that? The new match I'm on? No, I've seen the trailer so many times I feel like I've seen everything in that film. I haven't seen a bunch of his stuff in between, you know, what some might call the good ones. I've read so much about it and so many people have loved it. And I'm just like, I just don't get what he's doing. If it's meant to be funny, it's not funny enough. And if it's meant to be thrilling, it's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous. And I do think it knows it's ridiculous, but I just didn't... It wasn't for me, anyway, that's all. Yeah. My big thing with that film, just off the trailer. But the trailer is what hooked me. I was like, actually that does look like it's a good conceit. The conceit is great, but the thing that threw me out of the film instantly is Josh Hartnett, isn't it? When he goes to the snack stand or whatever and goes, hey, where are all these police and cameras? If I was that guy on the snack stand who's been briefed why he's there, going, one of these guys are a killer, we go- Don't tell anyone. why is the guy who's asking about the police and cameras, who's aware of that stuff? He's the last person I'm telling. And so the whole movie is full of things like that. And so at some point you just have to be like, he knows what he's doing. It's like arch or something. But for me, I was just like, this is mental. I don't. Anyway, and I saw one other that I imagine you will have seen, but maybe you haven't. Long legs. Still not watched it on a list, but still not watched it. Interesting. Herd mix things. Yeah. Not for me. I think I'd asked, I enjoyed about half of it. And then I was like, what is this now? What is this now? That's all. But I think you might quite like it because it's quite quirky and it's a very singular vision. Okay. But yeah, and then Nicholas Cage. Yeah. There's always that. So that's it. I think that's about the, um, and that is what I did on my summer holidays. Saw lots of other stuff in there that was a varying degrees of good. The accountant, Ben Affleck finally watched that. Quite liked it. Calkey, uh, 20, 80, 98 AD. Quite liked that. Yeah. Just some other random stuff like, um, eat, pray, love. Of course. Why not? Didn't love it. Okay. I think that's enough. I think that's enough preamble. We got a big hitter to open this up. Matthew, do you remember what we do now? We hold hands and we walk through the quite heavy, um, UCI cinema doors. Is UCI cinema still a thing? I don't think so. I've never heard of it. So let's say no. Odian, for where you are, which we haven't even reminded or even told the new listener, Matt Highton, London, Simon Fielder. Bye-bye India. I'm watching things in the PVR cinema and that is where I saw our feature presentation. And now, our feature presentation. Dodge this. All right, Matt, here we are. We're nestled. You're in the Odeon or actually just at home, sadly watching this on digital rental. I did see this in the very posh PVR where you could genuinely order pasta to your seat. Wow. Which is one thing that I think is incredible about Indian cinemas. I did not order pasta to my seat. And in a way I'm quite glad because I think this is not a movie you should be eating at dinner while you're watching. It's not a pasta movie. The movie is a Hindi language full bore action. Some might even call it horror at times. It's called simply Kill. It is directed by Nikhil Bhat. It stars. Lakshya and Raghav Juhyal. Matthew, as is tradition and was tradition and even in your absence, I force people to do this. I may haven't got the practice that you have for doing it. Give us the Sight and Sound magazine. Does this still exist? I don't think so, but I think Kim Newman does still write Care of Sight and Sound on the BFI website, which I found out today because he reviewed this movie. Give us the... the synopsis, non-spoiler synopsis, of Kill. Mason- Okay, so it is a film about essentially two commandos, but one commando who is in love with a woman who is betrothed to someone else due to her family being quite rich and stuff. So it essentially starts as a tale of love. Two lovers who cannot be together, but dream and plan on running away. It sounds lovely so far. Mason Hickman It is lovely. It's a very nice 10 minutes of just breathing you get. Cut two, she is getting on a train with her family. For some reason, him and his friend decide to get the same train. I'm still not sure why. And, assumably, at the end of this train journey, they will abscond and disappear and elope. Plot twist, a gang of about 40 thieves in the worst jumpers I've seen on cinema in a long time. decide to heist the train, and by heist I mean just rob the people on it of their goods and belongings, discover that the woman's dad is a rich transport mogul, decide that this could be the cash payday that they've been dreaming of, and instead of just doing that in a nice way, they go cuckoo bananas and start chopping people up left, right and center. Thus begins what I would describe as 90 minutes nonstop, adrenaline packed blood bath material. Spoilers to come. Put that on your poster. Adrenaline packed blood bath material is a good quote. We, if the listenership of this goes up a bit, that's, you can have that on a poster, a Leicester square tube station. Thank you. I'll put it up. Just, if you just print it out on a dot matrix printer and then Pritz stick it. across the poster for a movie that is no longer in cinemas in the UK. Yeah, that's a great sum up. Where to start? I think what stands out, we've spoken about some Bollywood actioners on this show before and by and large, they sort of fit a certain template, right? We've say we've talked about Tiger 3, we've talked about RRR, not Bollywood, but Tollywood, still, you know, Indian cinema. And they all, the more that I've watched and you've watched and everyone who's been on has watched, the more any person watches of a country's cinema, you see the tropes and you see how things are done. And action is sort of, you know, I don't want to say in every movie, but traditionally in... big blockbuster masala movies, action is portrayed in one way, this very sort of glamorous like hero shots, people doing things in slow-mo, just like things looking really impressive and incredible. And what hasn't up until now that I've seen, in my quite limited purview, but you know, as far as I'm aware, what we haven't seen from Indian cinema is this very visceral, up close, you know, to sell it quickly. The raid inspired, John Wick inspired, close quarters. And while Indian cinema is quite happy to show violence, but will, for example, bleep the swear words in Bad Boys for Life, which I saw in the cinema, but I did not hear them say motherfucker or cocksucker. They actually don't. They beat themselves. That's just the release. There ain't, there's no bubbies. There's no big swears. But even in quote unquote movies for the family, you're allowed to see people being like stabbed quite a lot. But this level of stabbing and brutality is very rarely seen. What I would describe as a horror movie, almost gore like. level. Like you would compare it to like Korean Revenge Cinema, The Night Comes For Us. Like that level of gag. Yeah. It was intense. It was intense. That's where I want to start. So this is like a sort of like watershed moment for Indian cinema, I think, in that regard. I think, was it, was it, god, I'm casting back now to, oh, must be what, 2021? Was it Sanak we watched? Sanak, the hospital. I think that is. I think that's the closest. Yes, because that was a very genre-fied action movie, wasn't it? But that focused a lot on martial arts, whereas this, whilst it's got some incredible martial arts in, they just wanted it to be brutal. They're like, and not brutal in a, like you say, in a Hollywood-like, Saw-style, that sort of gore where they're going to lavish and revel in sort of the blood. The blood is there because if you do this... consequences. There's some real, like, it doesn't feel like they've... What's beautiful about this film? Which, if you told me this was it, it's basically Under Siege 2. Let the record state, 20 minutes in when Under Siege 2 got mentioned. But like, the thing about a film, this film, the first 10 minutes is very much, they're setting up the emotional drive and it is a bit sort of like, ah, fuck. I don't really care. It's fun. It's very Bollywood, isn't it? It's like as much as it, and this is, I think the movie as a whole, and we'll talk more about this later, but like it doesn't shy away from over like melodrama in that sort of Bollywood blockbuster way. Amps it up, yeah. Like to the point where you're like, oh, this is a bit sort of, bleh. But don't worry, they have some sour for that sweetness. But like. So the whole film is essentially, yeah, you get 10 minutes, 15 minutes of sort of set up and then they get on the train and this film clocks in at about an hour 40. They get on the train and very quickly get to the action. Once they're on there, it goes, but once the action goes, it doesn't stop. And if you said to me they can't sustain what is probably about an hour and 10 minutes of just non-stop, essentially four carriages worth of violence, I'd be like... This is going to get old really quick, but it's so tense. It's like close to a thriller. It never lets up and it never, and like the things that you think would happen in certain spots don't happen. The things that you hope don't happen do happen. Like there's so much in this where they're like, they're not trying to be nice to the people you care about. They don't want these people to do anything, but what actually happens to them. So like. There is a case of like, in the villains you get maybe four characters that stand out above a background of very sort of generic bad guys. Jumpers. Yeah, they are very much jumpers. But those generic bad guys aren't, it's not like, well I understand now this guy's had this conversation with this guy so they're going to face off, well you get an element of that. Anyone who is in that gang can and will do damage. You don't know who's going to hit where, you don't know who's going to get thrown into the mix. There is collateral in the form of passengers. There is collateral in the form of family. There is stakes in the form of family. But what they do better than any other film I have seen is they play that, oh my God, this guy is so good, this commando, and he has fucked up our plan so royally, like gone on a murder spree. What they do is they start to implement a layer of fear the gang, but also give a really beautiful mechanism that means they have to see this thing through to the end. So they can't just jump, they can't run away. But what happens is they start to view this guy as a monster and you see this level of fear, like just pierce them and sort of spread and sort of get more and more overcome as he becomes more rageful and vengeful for reasons of plot. And it's just, it's a really good turn in that sort of middle where... you go, okay, this has gone from save the day to I am going to kill every one of you. And it's a really like, yeah, I think the raid is a really good reference point for this sort of, they find a scenario to put these people in and go, you are fucked. Yeah. And I think if you go into this movie blind, which I think is tough now, but you know, you, I just told you, this is good. You should watch it. Right. And then you watched it. And I went in having heard, oh, this is like a really bloody action movie, but it has, I mean, can we do spoilers? Not made, not major spoilers. Okay. But some spoilers because, because it, as you say, sets up the stakes and the characters and does this sort of lovey-dovey soft focus Bollywood stuff at the beginning. And then, you know, the, the action kicks off and then you're like, Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. So, so far pretty, pretty fine. Yep. And then it's not till like 45 minutes in, there is the turn. Right? There is a moment. And the title. The title card drops. And this is, I think the best title card drop since RRR. Like, I mean, I saw this in a not full cinema and I would like a posh cinema. So it wasn't like just full of people throwing confetti, like all in the TikToks and social media videos during RRR. It was just like, you know, couples and stuff, but there were people cheering and whistling in this. Yeah, I was saying, I saw this in, you know, half full cinema, you know, a nice time during the day, that's when I like to go to the cinema. But there were people whistling at parts of this movie, and... The, I can't remember if the interval came exactly after the title card, because when I watched it back again on streaming, there was no interval and it didn't say intermission on the screen. But I think maybe the interval, they still have intervals in one hour 45 minute movies. I think it was like title card interval. And I was just like, oh, shit. And I didn't, I know how. In hindsight, I guess it is a somewhat cliched trope of action movies. This is a spoiler, so don't listen for the next 10 seconds while I say this word. It's called fridging. Are you aware of this? So it's like, when you... Mega spoiler happening now, when you kill off the wife, the girlfriend, the kid, whatever. It's fridging the wife, fridging the girlfriend. So it's, you know, a thing that I guess probably happened in like 80s and 90s movies a lot, where they, you know, it was like, they killed his wife. Now they have to deal with everything he has left. But I honestly, like, when I was in the cinema, I was like, that bit was just, I was just like, it's so fucking emotional. And while the emotion at the beginning felt cheesy, somehow this bit of emotion fully got me because I just did not see that coming. Yeah, I didn't either. Certainly not how they did it in there. Yeah, it sort of just comes from nowhere. I mean, I guess like if you go in with a movie brain and you're just like, well, given the first 10 minutes of this movie, what would be the thing that would make the stakes right through the roof? But it just didn't occur to me. Didn't occur to me. And then that turn comes and you go from, oh, he's like a commando and he's, you know, punching a few people. then it becomes like the title of the movie. And while you might be like, it's a bit of a cheesy title, it could not be a better title for how it appears on the screen of everything that happens after it. It's that thing, isn't it, in that twisted sort of, there are no heroes, there's only points of view sort of thing. But with this, they literally, they have him fight for something, and then they take everything away. everything away. And you do that thing where he's like, you see it, he goes, I don't care if I get off this train, I am just gonna murder my way through. Yeah. And like, there's an interesting thing as well. Like there's a difference in the way he fights. He suddenly goes from sort of defender to killer. Yeah, turns into an animal. Yeah. So that in itself, like from the sort of whoever choreographed and directed this, the way he suddenly moves and the way he takes no prisoners, going from... Not that he's taking prisoners, but he is just trying to survive and stop these guys. Mason- Subdued people at the beginning. Jason- Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's just something else. It's something else. And it is, again, it's non-stop. And you should be able to sustain that for maybe 20, 30 good minutes. But it just has the right rhythm of the film to keep you hooked, to keep you going, okay, they're going up the carriage, they're going down the carriage. They now stop there, they have a little, and they go up the carriage. And it should be really dull. It should be like, oh yeah, I get it. Once they're on the train, the whole movie is on the train. And you're never like, hope they get to a new location soon, so there's some new stuff. I think that speaks volumes to the production design. way it's shot. Because somehow, you know, at the beginning it's like brightly lit, fluoro lights. And then I think like, as the movie goes on, and it gets like literally and figuratively darker, you know? And then there's parts of it where it's literally a horror film. He's like, turns into like Jason Fourhees, you know? There's a bit where he just like suspends the... bodies of people he's killed from the top bunks of a train carriage, so they're all hung up. And it's like a horror movie image. Mason- I think that's why this film elevates itself in terms of going from just an action, gorno-style violent film. There's a psychology to it, and there's a punishment to it that he clearly wants to infigure. Because that is the thing with these thieves as well. The thieves... essentially, they're not slick. They're not Hans Gruber and his mob. They're not suited up and stuff. One of the characters says it, we are just thieves. They're just there to rob. One of them, it's got that beautiful dynamic, is the son of the main guy. And so there's a, you do things this way, we should do it this way. So there's a conflict of interest and some sort of tension there. But the way that they view each other as family, like... If you shot this film from their point of view, like where they're playing this heist and they're getting in, you would get on their side and then you'd be like, who the fuck is this monster stopping at? Even though the thieves are horrible, especially like a select few of them, there is a thing that they do really well, which they don't make them sort of streaks of rage bad guys. They're not just like walking up, walking in with a pole. Everyone is affected by the actions on this train. And it is, it's... Just whisk the start of that movie and it is a heist gone wrong film. Like that's what it is. So like you do get that play out as well. And there is no more crying over deaths in any other movie I've seen than this. Like the repercussions of people being killed are just felt so much. You never see, you never see like... Aside from, it's interesting that you mentioned Hans Gruber and Die Hard, because if you imagine Um, the, when McClain kills the guy and writes like, ho, ho now, and machine gun, and then the long haired, like chief henchman, it's his brother, right? So he like hears about his brother and he smashes everything up and he's like, ah, I'm going to kill McClain. Whereas all of the thieves are like related in that sort of Indian cousins way, right? Some of them, some of them are like father, son. then everyone else is like someone's cousin. So every time someone dies and the news reaches back to where the bad guys are, someone's like grieving and distraught. And it's like so rare to see that. And then, and it sort of goes both ways because then when like, you know, innocent people get killed, their families are there and like grieving and like some of that plays out later on in the movie. Yeah. It's great. Carl. Just trying to think of the Die Hard guy. Your eyes just like disappeared, did you hear like a slot machine like, ring ring, Carl. He's back, and he's back on, he hasn't heard anything I said since Die Hard. Yeah, I was listening and I agree. But again, the stuff where you say about families and stuff that are not on either side of this conflict that are just incidentals. Again, the way they're woven in again. It's very real world. It's just very well done. I think we could talk about how well done this is for ages, but I think the only other element you have to really talk about is something we've not talked about yet. The choreography of it is very good as well. Mason- Yes. Toby- So it's not Hong Kong action levels of like, this is slick fighting, but in the same way, the fighting feels very brutal and very real and there are some very cool little moments. Like this guy can do a little fly kick. every now and then and you're just like, that is a fucking badass move. Just wang it in, mate. Yeah. It just, just do a little, little flurry. But again, they, they've really thought about the space. I always remember this from, what's the film where they fight in a lift and they use elbows. It's either a Bond or a Bourne film. Oh, there's quite a lot of fights in lifts. Gosh. It was one of those things where- Great one in Ferang recently, but I don't think- Long story short, there's a, there's a fight scene in film and they basically They don't punch, they use their elbows. And it's- God, I want to get this now, but I'm nowhere close. If I haven't got it by the end of the podcast, I'll Google it and find it. Okay. But it was a moment in a film where I remember watching it and I remember thinking, this is a guy who's trained and they thought, how would this guy fight in this space? They've not gone for a full punchy punch. They've gone in that, again, that Hong Kong way of going, the environment has its own effects on the fight. With this, they've clearly thought, how wide is this train? How long is this train? To the point where they've probably also done this for filming grammars and stuff, they've locked off areas. So you've got this stretch of maybe two to four carriages at times, but you've got this constant stream of action. They eliminate guns in a very good way. They basically say, oh, guns are shit. And they take them out of the action. So you've got knives, you've got bludgeoning and you've got fists and all those things are going to come into play. it's going to affect the fight. I'd love to see how long they've drilled this. How they broke it down to either sections or how they've broken it down into like, we're going to choreograph this level. Because it's almost like a one shot in certain ways. It's like they've planned through the route and they've planned every fight along the way. And they've decided this is where he's going to be like an unstoppable hero. This is where he's going to get hit. Fog made us get hit. I'd love to count how many times his stab. Oh, I mean, yeah. If you're going to be Mr. Nitpicks, you'd be like, I feel like he might have died. It's funny that you said he's going to get to this level because it is like, they could have made it a video game and each carriage is just a different level. And in a way, he should have probably died several times in this movie. The amount he stabbed and wanged over the head. Well, his friend, they sort of take him out of the action from being Brutally stabbed. Stabbed worse. A bit early, yeah. Yeah. Which is like an interesting thing as well, because that gives it again, another dynamic. Another dynamic. It brings another dynamic. Yeah. So, they obviously thought this out, but that is probably the only element that it had to do. It's like, this guy can't not get hit. And this guy, certain times, needs to be out of it. But how many times and what? And that's, again... The thing that they do well is they conceal that. It's like a magic trick. So you're seeing it happening, but you're also like, yeah, he's got up for this reason, adrenaline's pulling through for this reason. Yeah. And they do a very good job of like, you watch him sort of like beat up a whole load of guys and you're like, oh great. He's just like, you know, he's an unstoppable hard nut. So what's going to... And then immediately they're like, yeah, let's introduce the really big guy who's like actually quite a tough adversary for him and really beats the shit out of him a little bit. They really like, it's very well sort of crafted and plotted such that he's not Steven Seagal just burning through like 40 people in no time. So, so, action star is gone. Actually, I can't be hurt. That's part of my contract. He's not Jason Statham being like, no one's punching me in the face anymore. Cheers. Yeah. There's a bit where, so there is like, again, you'll be watching this, but there is like the guy who is the muscle for the thieves. And he is the muscle. He's a big lad. is a dirty sort of like, he is strength over any skill, but there's a bit where they are strangling each other. And it was almost giving me my action replay because I was on my own, it's about half nine, ten at night, just in the lounge, big guy strangling our boy, he starts strangling back and I instantly go, no! Eyes! And just like, why did he just gouge his guys eyes out? I got really like, vigilant, almost like, survival mode about it. Like, what would I do in this situation? Because there's no way you can get out of this. He's a trained commando. He must be told to go directly for the eyes. Oddly, he doesn't, does he? He simply snaps his fingers. In a horrifically brutal way. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, I mean, the action director on this is a guy who I will now mispronounce Se-Yong Oh, who is a Korean guy who has worked on a bunch of stuff like Snowpiercer and a couple of other Bollywood movies. I think War was one of them. I was going to mention Snowpiercer because- That's on a train, isn't it? Get the train guy. But Snowpiercer is an interesting one in itself. Also obviously set on a train, but it's a very different sort of- progression. That's almost like a video game where every carriage is a level and so on so forth. But again, very creative way to film a film. Like they've clearly planned it out, thought it through. Cause once you're limited on space, and this is the thing about it, like I always think in technicals, being confined to an area is one thing. So if you're set, like the raid is set in a building for the most of it, Die Hard is set in the Nakatomi Plaza. But you've got space. Whereas this, you've got such a narrow thing. It's so tiny. What's the last year's film? Bullet Train. Bullet Train is quite a wide open train. True, yeah. Or is this a very, one person is kind of confined just walking down the train? Yeah, this movie is like the opposite of Bullet Train. Yeah, very much is. What this film needed is every character to have a freeze frame with their name. And be really like arch and jokey about everything. Yeah, I like bullet train. I thought it was fine. Yeah, I remember. But even with bullet train, they had to get off the train to do the finale, right? Yeah. Whereas in this, they're not getting off that. They're getting off that shit, mate. Have you, have you, there's two things I want to... bring up, but one before we get onto that is have you looked at the budget of this? Because I've not. I'd be interested to know because again- Will Barron Tough to track down. But also it's, you know, we're talking Indian level budgets. So it will be so much less than you think. It's extraordinary what they can do with the money here. Will Barron I'm always interested in films that have been creative choices for a reason, but rolling on from that reason they made this creative choice, which you only- brought to my attention maybe two hours ago is, and I can't stop now, it's blowing my mind. This is based on a real story. Yes! Insane. That is in itself a good reason to think it, but at no point they say based on real events or anything like that. No. I think it's inspired by. In the true story, the guy didn't kill 40 people. Yeah, I think he killed three, didn't he? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And he became a hero and heavily decorated. Yeah. It is mad. But you see, to speak to budget and stuff, it's produced by Dharma Productions, who are quite a big production company. So it's definitely not a sort of indie scraping by zero budget kind of thing. Yeah, it doesn't feel like that. Some of the sort of behind the scenes things. So they built the whole train, all three carriages of the train, and the walls moved out and moved around so that the cameras could get in and out and they could shoot 360 and stuff. So it's by no means... like a low budget move. But I think it does have a lot in common with that. It has that level of scrappiness. And I mean that in a good way. It's like we're limited by the train. So what are all the things we can do on a train? Someone's got to go on the roof at some point. Maybe we don't have a whole fight on the roof. Maybe the budget doesn't stretch to a fight on the roof. we can green screen somebody walking along the roof. Which is still, I'm sure there must be a MythBusters on this or something. I still always wonder about the actual real life physics of walking on a train. I bet Tom Cruise has done it, hasn't he? Actually they did. In fact, for Dead Reckoning, is it Dead Reckoning? I think so. They shot, isn't it like a knife fight on top of a train? They shot that on top of a real train. You can do it. Train sequence is a bank. Dead Reckoning did them. It wasn't RRR. What was the Bollywood one we watched that was ridiculous where they had a whole helicopter going down. Oh, Patan has a train. Very good train sequence. Ridiculous train sequence. Yeah. Maybe they never went out of fashion after all. Maybe trains have always been there. Tony Scott's Unstoppable. Pretty sure that was in the early 2000s. That could be 20 years ago. Do you know what? Because it's popular now to take like childhood LAP and then... make it adult and gritty. Maybe Thomas the Tank Engine's due a gritty reboot. I think Thomas the Tank Engine has never stopped is the thing. We're like, well, it was probably 30 years ago, but I think he's still trucking. He's still- He's still going. I have a thing about Thomas the Tank Engine, because all the Tank Engines are alive obviously in all the vehicles. But like Annie and Clarabel- essentially the human centipede of trains. That just his carriage is forced ass to mouth. I just don't know like how they sustain. Like Thomas obviously survives off coal, but I don't know what they're on. I don't know what they're eating. Steam. Yeah, we don't know. Will Barron His exhaust. Jason Vale What a decide. Will Barron I want to shout out a couple of things. One, this is quite fascinating to me. And I don't something analogous with it in Hollywood or elsewhere, that the director of this movie, Nicol Bahr, who also wrote it, is not like an action movie guy. He's made a few movies before this and they are absolutely not action movies. And this movie is such a deliberate genre action movie. I don't want to generalize, but it seems like directors here can be like, I've made, I make a comedy and now I'm going to make this action movie and then I'm going to do this. Whereas to, if, if you were sort of, I want to say anywhere else in the world almost, and you made this movie, like Gareth Evans made Muranto, then he made The Raid, then he made The Raid 2, because he was like that guy. So, hey, I'm fascinated to see what, what he does next. But B, I'm just sort of, on a sort of getting to this movie being made, like it seems such an interesting idea that as someone, I mean, yeah, he absolutely could just be a massive fan of action movies. Mason- But also it is a thing like, certainly in the Hollywood system, you have to have proven yourself in certain areas to be trusted with that. Because it's the budget. All always comes back to budget and stuff. But again, like, all depends on your team, doesn't it? Cause like, if you've got a good team, someone who is director of choreography, someone who's director of photography, essentially you just need someone who's got a good brain to put it all together and sort of know where to put the focus. Like we've talked about this on old episodes. It's so easy to have the camera ruin an action sequence. It's so easy to put in something that is so sort of gratuitous that you're like, Oh, that's really took me out of the action. Like a camera swing or something in the same way. it's so difficult sometimes to put on a little tiny movement that adds to the action. Like the move I always think of, and I think, I can't remember seeing it pre-millennium, but like when someone does like a pile driver or throw someone on the ground and the camera goes with them in thirds and tilts. Yeah, that's very popular, innit? Like that level of cameraing came from obviously rigs getting light away and handheld becoming smoother. But now you see a lot of that that... just completely ruins it, like completely does nothing for it. And then you get some that are like, the camera becomes so active, it'll spike your adrenaline. And again- Will Barron Well, in this, I think that is the case, right? Like- Jason Vale Absolutely. Will Barron By nature of it being such a confined thing, like you're right up in it so much of the time. Jason Vale Yeah. But it's also a masterclass of editing because again, like some Netflix, I hate saying this because I hate being negative, but like Cowboy Bebop, for example. I love the anime of Cowboy Bebop, but the action, live action just felt very stale. I think what that is, is just, because on the paper, great actors, great premise, shot beautifully, but at the same time, it felt like every now and then, it's that person who knows that edit needs to be a split second this way or that way. It needs to be like, the camera needs to be here. And your eye needs to just, just without. ever thinking about it, follow it. And this film does this brilliantly. Like it really keeps that pace up from start to finish. That pace never drops when the action's on screen. It never like, it understands that the camera mimics the emotion and that is so crucial to good action. Especially when it's like hand to hand and stuff like that. Like a big Hollywood it's a lot of explosions and stuff like that and you just... It's visually, you're just blown away. Mad Max, we talked about earlier, is a great example of that. But the stuff that brings you the difference between a shallow guns and explosions to a, oh my God, that was incredible, is the person who is driving it. It's the script, it's the characters. Mason- Yeah. I think you're right. There's no, when you sort of break it down, like a good director should be able to direct any genre, right? If it's like a good story. And It's just sort of fascinating to me that suddenly you would go, you know what Bollywood hasn't had yet is a The Raid style. We've never really done that type of action. And in spite of me never having done that before, I would like to make this movie. And then someone went, sounds great, mate. Here's the money. Like get a good cinematographer. We've got this action director from Korea. big other movies here before. And it's just like, yeah, and it turned out great. It's amazing. Mason- That's the thing. You've got someone who's invested in it though. To give a Hollywood equivalent of this, you said this guy's wrote it and directed it. So he's thought about it from every phase. And that is crucial in stuff like this. Marvel is always an easy comparison, because no one does it bigger. But seeing someone come into Marvel who has been given something and just makes... know, a very decent Hollywood film. But then you give sort of Deadborn Wolverine, which is another film I saw recently, managed to get out and see it, you give that to Ryan Reynolds, who is literally, he's at the script level, he's at the getting it produced level, he is at the choreography. He is in every level of that film because he is passionate about that character and how that is then brought to screen. Marvel has a series of ticks that they need in an MCU film that needs to bleed into the rest of it. But the difference between someone like James Gunn or, I can't remember who actually directed Deadpool and Wolverine, but having a team who was like, we are going to be here from point A to point Z. That's the difference. So if someone's come up with this idea and went, I want to make this film, they've not done it because they just want to make a film. They want to tell this story. They want to show this story. And that is, that's where like talent comes in. Like if you gave, who's a good example? Wait, are you saying Deadpool and Wolverine is good? I really enjoyed it. Okay. Did you not? I haven't seen it. I really enjoyed it. I haven't seen Deadpool 2 and I'm fairly marvelled out at this point. So. Yeah, but that's the thing. It is a marvel. I really enjoyed it. I'd put it up there with the best of the marvels. Really? Yeah. Just because, but again, you forget like I'm a comic nerd and what that film does, it's without too many spoilers. What is very good about it, I think what a lot of the fans responded to was Ryan Reynolds essentially has a love letter to 30 years of Fox films, like the X-Men franchise that has gone, the Blade franchise, all the old Daredevils stuff, all those like comic films that pave way for what the MCU became. You liked that. The sort of infinite, the cameo conveyor belt as I've heard. Yeah, because it could have just been like a cameo conveyor belt, but he cares about those characters. So he's done it in a very loving way. And that is the thing, if you've got someone who cares about something, they're always going to do a better job than someone who's just there to make something. Will Barron Is there a joke about Blade Trinity in it? Will Barron Yeah. Will Barron Okay, great. I just literally was like, hey, wait a minute, he was in a Blade movie. Will Barron There's a Van Wilde joke in it, there's loads. Will Barron I'll watch it on streaming. Will Barron But again, you're talking about a film that an audience is not. kill audience and stuff like that. But go back to the point of a director, there's certain directors who, whatever genre they put their hand to, Kubrick is the obvious example because his films have so many genres. Like Clockwork Orange is a thriller, ultra violent for its time, banned in so many countries. The Shining is his horror. He never really did a rom-com though, did he? Yeah, yeah. Good point actually. Sorry. Take it back. Yeah, yeah. There's Barry Linden, which is a period piece. There's 2001, which is sci-fi. He's done all types of genres, but because he's Kubrick and because he has such a good eye for stuff, even though he sounds like a monster on set, he makes it work. And that is the thing that I think in this big sort of, we're coming out of a period of... Hollywood machine and coming back towards, I think there's a lot of interesting indie stuff coming out at the moment. I think that's partially due to the backlog of the writer's strike and stuff. But we are coming down to, we're technologies in people's pockets. Filmmaking can be done on any level now. So what you need is you need really good alters, really good creatives who are like, I don't want to be in a world where this film doesn't exist. things set on a train, but it is that, is creative people, good filmmakers will always produce something better than someone who's just there to get paid. 100%. Yeah. And I think that's my question is like, which came first? The, let's make this a absolutely brutal thing because we've never done it, chicken, or the, I'd really like to tell this story based on a true story of a commando on a train. That's the other side. They've, they've took that true story and they have twisted it into something ultra violent. So that is. But the selling point of the movie is let's make it ultra violent. We don't do this in India. So I sort of wonder if that's like a, if that, if that comes from like a producer level where they're like, we want an action movie. Okay. Oh, you've got an idea for one. Okay. Hey, what about if it's the most violent action movie India's ever seen? I'm listening. I'm just intrigued about the mechanics of that for some reason. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to be in those rooms. I'm constantly fascinated by the behind the scenes that we very rarely get to hear about. But also they've done that and they've done it well. They've not done it to a sort of Sam Raimi levels of blood spurts everywhere. They've kept it very visceral and very real. And just to go back as well, I just want to say no one goes out to make a bad film. It's so hard filmmaking. I know. We say this so often. I always want to say this because any film that gets to a screen is already a win. It's already won. There's so many factors. But there are also so many decisions. Like you say, like, yeah, when was that? Like, cause there are, there are, there are kills and, and bits of violence in this where, and I think I, I text you something straight away. I was like, fucking hell, that's brutal. I came out quite, and I like- I've watched so much violent stuff and so much bloody stuff. But yeah, something about this film tapped into something else that was really like, and I have been more sensitive since I've been a dad, that is a hundred percent thing. I was bawling my eyes out at the end of Ironclaw, Jesus. But yeah, there's something really like, it tapped into something very, very primal. And I felt very, for a while after it, like fucking hell. Oh God. I really like had witnessed something atrocious. Yeah. It does try. I think it does speak to that in the movie as well, right? It's very much like, as much as it one minute, it's like, you cheer at this guy having his literal skull caved in. And then it's like the next scene is like his brother weeping, you know? And then towards the end of the movie, the, the bad guy who is, he's called Fanny. I mean, that's could be fun in a way. played by Regav Juyal, who I found out today is chiefly known as a dancer. This is his breakout role. So I think he's great in this. He's a very, really nailed... He's the standout part in this. The sort of, how do you describe that sort of insouciant bad guy, who's just like a little bit overconfident and slime. Young, arrogant. Yeah. Or a really hateful figure. But towards the end of this movie, where he sort of knows he's losing... He like says, who kills like this? I killed four people on a train. You've killed 36 of my family. Yeah. You're an animal. And it's like, it's like writ large. Here is the message of the movie. Who is the real bad guy now? Look at yourselves. Why are you enjoying this movie? You know? Yeah. But again, with a little bit of reframing, it's a completely different film. Like, like I said before, if they'd come into this with like, this family, this gang, they're essentially thieves, they come from poverty and stuff. This is what they have to do to survive, show them a bit of family life and then come to that train. And then it's a completely different spin, which again, is so hard to balance that. So hard. Mason- You rarely see that in a movie, do you? I mean, you do see movies about heists and stuff, but I've never seen a movie where it starts off about the bad guys and then suddenly it's about... out the, as I'm saying it, my mental Rolodex is going and then it becomes about the John McLean character. That would be an interesting movie. Would it or would it? Well, that's the thing. Star Wars from Darth Vader's point of view, terrorism. Terrorism admittedly a very horrible regime. But yeah, you know, I mean, every point of view is so important in a film. But like, point of view where you can imprint something and change that point of view onto your audience without it being heavy handed is very difficult. This film falls into a really rare bracket for me of something that I very much enjoyed and I very much would recommend to people. But I probably will never watch this film again. Wow. Because it just, it's already done to me what it needs to do. Like, I don't need to go back and see these people die again. Like it's really... really hit something. And in 20 years, if you want me to talk about this film again, I think I'll be able to recount it just as well. Mason- It's etched in your mind. Jason- Yeah, it's up there with Prometheus. In a very different way. Mason- Oh no. Oh no. Jason- In a very different way. Mason- Yeah. Well, I will say I watched it in the cinema like, I guess a month or two ago? Yeah, probably a couple of months ago. And then I watched it again yesterday on streaming and yeah, it didn't... I think the first time is like anything, like it hits the hardest. Seeing it in a cinema, like I was, I think I might have given this five stars on Letterboxd just for the experience of, I don't remember a cinematic experience that got me that like riled up since like John Wick 4 or RRR before it. Watching it again at home, I didn't have the same level of like- Because you know it's coming though, you can't. Exactly. I mean, yeah, it's, I can't retrospectively recommend everyone sees it in the cinema, but I definitely think if you're a fan of action movies, I would say movies generally, but I think it's too much for a lot of people. Yeah. If you're an action movies and if you love like, man, if you love like Korean revenge, stabby dramas, The Night Comes For Us, that sort of thing, this is going to be a right up your cul-de-sac. Before we go, Matthew, it might be a new series, but we've got a few old habits to that die hard. Movie title. Thank you. He said, he said to the title of the movie in the movie. Before we go, we need your action replay moment. So there's a lot of action replays in this, but again, action replays for me is normally something that I revel in. And I'm like, oh my God, they did that well. You've already established you will not watch this film again. So there is no literal action replay. But there's just things where I'm just like, oh, but the one that's sticking. So there's those things I've just lodged in my head forever now. But I think the toilet kill is probably. The toilet kill. Love that. In fact, you can, you could just be like, either the fire extinguisher kill, toilet kill, second fire extinguisher kill, lighter kill, hammer kill. Jason Vale Second worst fire extinguisher kill I've ever seen in a film, if I'm honest. Rupert Spira That is the real, that's sort of the real, oh he's lost it moment, isn't it? Or he's got it. However you want to use it. Jason Vale Again, knowing where to keep the camera and how long to keep the camera and how long to keep that playing out is... Rupert Spira And that was a, that is a deliberate decision that like, no, you're gonna... You're going to watch this and you're going to be like, am I enjoying this? Well, weirdly, one of the only other films that I will never watch again, um, also has a fire extinguisher kill, but much worse. Yeah. It's irreversible. Irreversible. Haven't seen. Don't watch it. It's very difficult to ever watch that movie, I think. Oh, sorry. We watched it at university cause we're film students. Sure. And yeah, that never was put on again. Just. Three, three lads in their twenties just sat silent for about three hours after it. Really horrible. It put me in mind of Drive actually, that, actually since that, you, oh you said Toilet. Yeah, because there's, there's unpleasant skulls being crushed. Also, what is it called? Brawl in Cell Block 99? Have you seen that? Yes. That also has a lot of horrific girls in it. Okay. I'm going to keep mine simple. It's when the title card drop. Oh yeah. I think that's what I'll choose as my action replay because even when I watched it again yesterday, I was like welling up at that moment. And then my girlfriend who was sat looking away from the screen because she cannot watch action movies, least of all this action movie was like, why are you watching this if it makes you cry? And then, and then like caught a glimpse of the screen and was like, Why are you watching? Why are you watching this movie? Why would you watch this? That title card drop is 45 minutes in. It's absolutely incredible. And I'm pretty sure there was an interval after it. And I just like walked out into the lobby to like use the bathroom or get a snack and I was just like, this movie is incredible. This hasn't even started yet. Has it started? I don't know what's going on. Anyway, it's, it is a... solid recommend from me. I think definitely from me as an enjoyer of action movies. I think it's great if you're someone who follows Indian Bollywood cinema. I think it's just a pivot point, a watershed moment, a very interesting, let's see now that this has happened, let's see if the floodgates are opened. Let's see what else, let's see what direction action goes in. Watch, the horrors are unleashed. Exactly. Now we have to have like 10 movies where Shah Rukh Khan is gouging people's eyes out because that's what people are into now. I don't know. I'm very excited. And I'm very interested to see off the back of this what the director does next. Yeah. I bet it'll be something very sweet. Yeah. Something just needs to wash the taste out. Maybe the antidote. Matthew, what an absolute treat it's been to have you back on the pod. It's been lovely to be back and I will try to come back more throughout the series if you'll have me. Thank you so much. But where can people find you, I suppose? That's where they need, what they need, isn't it? I mean, I am still for my sins active on Twitter, but it has become a cesspit. I use threads a bit more now, but generally just quite chill these days. It's quite chill. You're just beavering away. Don't worry about it. Yeah. If something interesting occurs in my life for professionalism, it'll be on Twitter or threads. And if something nice is happening in my life, it'll be on my Instagram stories. Oh, that's nice. Lovely little glimpse into the family man, Matthew Highton. Hey, if you want to find the podcast, you can still find that on, um, on Twitter. Although it just makes me sad going on that website almost every single time. Cause it just, it's just feeds you just shit. Isn't it? It's just so much shit. Yeah. Um, um, also just because I can't find it and I can't remember it, but if you. I don't think it's Captain America and the Winter Soldier. But if you can remember the, if you know the elevator scene I'm talking about where he fights with his elbows, I'm convinced it's a Bourne film. Is it Kill Box Soon? Did we watch that? We did, but this is, this is a whole, this is like a, yeah, English language film. A guy fights with his elbows in the elevator. So he's in a lift and he just, he just does some, you can't see my mime, but I am, I'm miming fighting with my elbows. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, please. Maybe it's Captain America. Listener, get in touch. You can at dodge this pod on Twitter, or you can just reach out to me via any of the social networks via my website, SimonFielder.com. If you're at all interested, I've got a sub stack news letter where occasionally I talk about action films and also talk about random shit that I'm learning and experiencing here in culturally quite different Mumbai, India. That's about, that's about it. I would say. And that's Mumbai from him and Mumbai from me. He's absolutely done it. Mumbai. I want to say we did that before smartless, but I can't be sure.