Rendel: Cycle of Revenge

Rendel: Cycle of Revenge

Christopher ‘Smiley’ Cox, head of the VALA Corporation which manufactured the NH25 vaccine, is on a rampage against his enemies. And yet this ruthless man has somebody quietly undermining him. Rendel tried to dismantle the company only a year before when they destroyed his family and life.

Rendel turns to two comrades for assistance; he has a hunch that something more evil than ever before is brewing within VALA. Kurrikka is a former employee of the company where he made Rendel’s other self Rämö work before anime adventurer unveiled to him the truths about VALA. Nina, a local paper lady who also looks shyly into the company. If Smiley’s lessons are about resurrection, Rendel turns up against the company once again and against himself as his cycle of revenge execution could ultimately be catastrophic.

This sequel had been expected to be a Finnish superhero film’s sequel as promised in 2018 after a successful global distribution but the audience received it much later blamed for hitches surrounding the production.

Jesse Haaja, the film’s director and character creator, began developing the sequel in 2019 with the intent on delivering a film that is far superior than his last film. But when production was interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the script had not been completely written, speculation began to surface that there were conflicts between Haaja, producer Miika J. Norvanto and screen writer Pekka Lehtosaari. In fact, Haaja would eventually be terminated from working on his own creation, which led him to retire as a filmmaker. Even though Haaja carried the only credit of the film, it was eventually handed over to producer Norvanto and Lehtosaari who were able to complete the film.

After Rendel’s encouragement and stabbing incident in the flashbacks or the film, Gummerus reprises the role of his character. Nevertheless, this film surpasses brilliant action and revenge even more. We watch a man named Rendel, who is filled with vengeance. In his mind, all he has is revenge, regret and inner demons that need to be vanquished. Rendel kicks off the action by rescuing a young boy (Jonah Paull) who falls over and hits his head after watching a hit ordered by Smiley and his gang.

At the end of the movie where some unfortunate occurrence takes place, Rendel is compelled to think again because he does not consider himself a superhero but a person who takes beatings constantly only to keep on fighting. A fight in which a stab will complete the transformation of a girl named Marla who from the very context uses a different set of skills, rather stylized ones. Jessica Wolff has taken up the character of Marla, who now feels like “the gift” in the portrayal by other actress in the AMC production of the series into the Badlands.

Climax of the film is introducing the protagonist and the main antagonist of the story. While the first movie was having a major antagonist with a bratty son of VALA ceo, here it is a wholly different story because this is the ceo of the company being as callous as ever. Sean Cronin, British actor, seems to be born for the role of Smiley, who, undeterred by cameras during interviews, exudes a sense of up front charm.

But, he is also very sinister and does not come off as nice or gentle in the film, especially when he has a secret plan and always employs a bunch of losers as guinea pigs to test out his ideas, all conceived in german by horst and gert played by jarmo makinen and jari manninen.

In the course of some retrospectives, a villain actor icon Bruce Payne plays the role of the grandfather and the one who founded the company.

Mikko Löppönen once again serves as fight coordinator of the film and while Rendel used a more street fighting style in the previous film, he is given a more technical fighting akin to kickboxing along with scrim where he uses two sticks against the VALA goons. As for her alter ego Marla, she comes in with a kickboxing style that employs a lot of side kicks and even some good legwork a la Taekwondo. In the film, there are even fighting with swords as we see Smiley having a style of ring knuckle fight and bushido, in fact he possesses a mentality involving way of samurai and yakuza.

Even if there were many behind the scenes problems during its making, Rendel: Cycle of Revenge is indeed a really good sequel, arguably the best after the first one. It indeed feels great to see a hero struggle not only with the enemy but also with his own shadows in order to finish the task at hand. Quite some good action as well and great work from Sean Cronin in the role of the antagonist leaves you wanting to watch this.

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