Big fan of Tjahjanto's work. Also glad to see he's got a big gig directing Nobody 2.

I got my TIFF tickets on the weekend and this was an easy pick (along with most of the other Midnight shows except a couple that I’m debating rushing because they sold out fast) in part thanks to you mentioning it in another thread before I’d seen the full film list. I saw HEADSHOT there in 2016. Thought it was just ok, but not much seemed to come of it, and his other films I’ve seen ranged from likewise ok (MACABRE, KILLERS) to excellent (THE NIGHT COMES FOR US, his segments in the otherwise so-so VHS anthologies), so he’s about due for an American feature-length tryout. His IMDb filmography lists LAST TRAIN TO NEW YORK (a remake of TRAIN TO BUSAN) as being “in production”, but I’m pretty sure that’s not true.

Definitely looking forward to this. Timo Tjahjanto is one of my absolute favorite (working) Directors.

Wasn't he announced as the Director for Nobody 2 (2025) a few months back?

He was, as Dex noted earlier, and it started production a few days ago from what I’ve read. That’s why it was odd to see the TRAIN remake listed as ‘in production’ as well as NOBODY 2 in his IMDB listing, but then the site is full of stuff like that.

Nice! And it doesn’t give away just how over the top the movie really gets.

I mentioned this briefly in an unrelated thread, but I saw this at TIFF and it flat out rocks . . . with one minor caveat (for me, anyway)

It’s about a female super-assassin named 13 (part of a duo act) forced to take some time off from the elite super-assassin ‘Shadow’ organization when a hit on a cartoon Yakuza chieftain in his wintry Japanese stronghold goes a little sideways in terms of an innocent person getting killed but is otherwise a smashing success in terms of everyone else getting sliced, diced, and blown to pieces (literally!) in spectacularly messy fashion. It’s a phenomenal sequence.

While she cools her jets incognito in Jakarta, she can’t resist getting involved in the life a young hard-luck neighbour boy who eventually disappears after his impoverished prostitute mother is killed over an ill-judged blackmail scheme.

My caveat goes here: this section of the movie actually drags a bit, surprisingly, especially after the wild opening. We understand 13’s ‘soft’ character, her sense of obligation, and some of the hierarchy behind the ‘john’ who killed the boy’s mom in a reasonable amount of time, but Tjahjanto really could’ve shortened this setup a bit without harming the overall flow. Now, part of this was probably me not realizing just how long this movie really is before the screening. I assumed, for whatever reason, that it would be in the 90-100 minute range, typical action fare, and this draggy bit was costing me precious action sequences, dammit!

So the movie is actually 145 minutes long. And once the heroine puts a few pieces together, it’s literally one bigger, more excessive action sequence after another right through to the end. Much like Tjahjanto’s previous films, and other Indonesian stuff like THE RAID movies, these sequences are beautifully choreographed and shot and edited, and they’re insanely violent. I believe this has a lot more swords and stabby little knives than in his previous films, so make of that what you will. Blood, everywhere. And because the villain is part of a structure reaching all the way to the halls of power, she gets to carve up and gun down an awful lot of sleazy and corrupt people and their henchmen even as her former super-assassin handlers are heading her way – and undertaking some brutal battles of their own along the way – to take her out of commission.

At the Q&A, Tjahjanto noted that this aspect was basically his big f.u. to the systemic corruption that has plagued his homeland forever, and further noted that the ’system’ on view in his film doesn’t hold a candle to its real-life counterpart.

For those who can’t handle women kicking all sorts of ass, even dudes that are much bigger than they are, the movie basically exists in a ‘universe’ where everyone in the Shadow organization has undergone brutal training (cue action flashbacks!) and has skills that border on superhuman even though they basically aren’t. And Tjahjanto’s go-to action choreographer Muhammad Irfan smartly bakes in plenty of business that shows how much harder 13 has to work to take down many of her opponents in John Wick fashion.

Also in the Q&A, an audience member asked if a key character in one of his previous films was a member of the Shadow organization in this film. He clearly hadn’t thought of that but winkingly noted that anything’s possible. Further to that, the globalized nature of the Shadow operation and the final scene in the film suggest any number of sequels and spinoffs that may or may not come to fruition, depending, he said, on Netflix and the response to this film.

I’ll post the Q&A at some point closer to the 17th, but it does contain a major spoiler so it’s probably best avoided until after you’ve seen the film anyway.

This is out tomorrow.