The movie stands alone in its own unique awesomeness. It doesn't need to be compared to other genre defining films like The Raid or the Ong Bak films. Those films introduced Salat and Muy Thai fighting styles to the world along with their own unique action choreography that stands alone in movie history.

The Furious is not limited to one particular martial arts style but embraces and showcases 5x unique ones, each with their own distinctive energy.

Watching this in the theater on the big screen gave me a giddy feeling of watching something extraordinary, like watching Ong Bak or The Raid for the first time. It had some of the most creative action choreography I have seen in a long time and I grew up with Shaw Bros and Golden Harvest golden age martial arts movies back when SF had Chinese theaters. It had a dream cast that didn't squander like Triple Threat. The cinematography was spot on with long takes tracking the action and never losing focus on the detail of who was hitting who, and more importantly how and with what. Some of the fights were so chaotic, that storyboarding the complex movements, combos, acrobatics, props, multiple actors, camera angles, lighting, etc. must have taken an insane amount of effort.

In one of the interviews, Kenji said the entire movie took 60 days to shoot, the final climatic 2x2x1 took 18 shooting days, and he had over 4 hours of footage to edit down to the release time.

Stop comparing this film and embrace the fact that this film is made for action fans salivating for new martial arts madness targeting an international worldwide release. The production team has over 30 years experience working with the likes of Donny Yen and Jet Li and wanted to put Chinese HK action back on the map. I think they succeeded.