“Timo Tjahjanto’s ‘The Shadow Strays’ May Be The Bloodiest Film Of 2024”

A few items here and there in my exchanges with Timo Tjahjanto took me by surprise, and none of them had to do with the amount of squibs needed on set to cover everything in front of the camera. I shouldn’t have been surprised; the folks who make ultra-bloody action films like those Indonesia is known for producing tend to be down to earth and empathetic, verging on sounding downright normal, like Gareth Evans – with whom Tjahjanto has collaborated in the past. (Hi, V/H/S/2!) All the same, his thoughts on the relationship between the violence in his cinema and the violence baked into the world we occupy struck me, and I’m glad I got to hear them.

You can read my piece on Tjahjanto and his most recent film, October’s The Shadow Strays, over at JoySauce.

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