Method Man is an integral part of one of the most important hip-hop groups of all time, Wu-Tang Clan. He’s also half of the hip-hop du Method Man and Redman. Outside of music, Method Man is an actor and has performed in a number of films throughout his career, including Venom, Garden State and How High.
In a feature with Rotten Tomatoes, Method Man once picked out his favourite martial arts film. In selecting his five favourite films, Method Man wanted to pick both Gareth Evans’ 2011 action thriller The Raid or Pete Travis’ 2012 science fiction film Dredd but pressed on the matter he unequivocally chose the former.
“Basically the same movie, but both of them were dope,” he said. “I had to throw a little foreign film up in there, you know, in my taste. [But] absolutely, The Raid, because The Raid came out first. I love how it was shot. I think that some of these people that make these comic book movies need to take note.”
Evans’ film is an Indonesian martial arts action that tells of an elite police task force who are sent in to take control of a high-rise building in Jakarta that is run by a powerful drug lord Tama Riyadi. The film stars Iko Uwais, an Indonesian actor and martial artist who had previously worked with Evans on the 2009 film Merantau.
The Welsh director initially conceived of The Raid when he moved to Indonesia to make a documentary about the nation’s martial art, pencak silat. Every part of the body is used in the combat style and includes strikes, throwing and grappling moves and even weapons. When Evans met Uwais, a silat fighter who was then working as a delivery man, he knew he had found his man.
It’s the action sequences from The Raid that are of particular admiration to Method Man. That’s why he was annoyed at the “comic book” guys who don’t know how to choreograph a fight properly. He said, “When you’re watching a fight out on the street between two guys, do you want to be up close in the fight? No. You want to stand back and see the whole scenery.”
“You want to actually see the fight,” Method Man added. “People are jockeying for position in the circle around these dudes so they can get a better look at the fight. They’re not in the middle of it! All you’re gonna see is a fist or an elbow.”
