Gareth Evans names his five favourite movies of all time
The Welsh director Gareth Evans began his career when he was hired as a freelancer to make a documentary about the pencak silat martial art of Indonesia. The exposure to combat led to an obsession in Evans, and he became close friends with one of the sport’s big names – Iko Uwais.
Eventually, Evans cast Uwais in his 2009 martial arts film Merantau and once again called up the fighter to play in his beloved film The Raid and its 2014 sequel. To get a closer look at Evans’ inspirations outside of pencak silat, we can consult a list of his favourite films, as per Rotten Tomatoes.
First up for Evans is the master of Japanese cinema Akira Kurosawa and his 1954 masterpiece Seven Samurai. Evans feels that the samurai classic is close to being “the perfect film”, particularly admiring the incredible action sequences. When Kurosawa’s film influenced Evans’ work on The Raid, he gained an appreciation for the “logistical nightmare” that the Japanese auteur likely went through in shooting those particular scenes.
Evidently, Evans is a big fan of Japanese cinema as he couldn’t help but include Takeshi Kitano’s 1997 film Fireworks, the movie that helped the legendary director establish himself on the international scene. “The emotional resonance of that ending is probably one of the most subtly heartbreaking moments in cinema,” Evans said. “I just think the film’s an absolute masterpiece. His nonlinear storytelling in that movie, I don’t think he’s ever kind of done that better. It’s just so incredibly well put together.”
Yet the love for Japanese cinema doesn’t end there, as Evans also selects Hirokazu Koreeda’s After Life from 1998 as one of his most-cherished movies. “I remember being totally blown away by every single frame of it,” Evans said. “The honesty of it, the fact that it celebrated life, the fact that it was so unbelievably profound and spoke volumes about living life to the fullest and cherishing every moment. I don’t think there’s been a more beautiful film about life itself.”
Outside of Japan, Evans also admired the French films of the 1990s, particularly Mathieu Kassovitz’s beloved La Haine, starring Vincent Cassel and Said Taghmaoui. The film tells of a day in the life of three friends in a poor suburb of Paris, and Evans said of it, “It was such a powerful film and such a powerful story that’s told so unflinchingly. That film has always stuck with me and has been something I’ve owned in every possible format I could own it in. That’s definitely high on the list.”
Gareth Evans’ five favourite movies:
- Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
- La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995)
- Fireworks (Takeshi Kitano, 1997)
- Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
- After Life (Hirokazu Koreeda, 1998)
Finally, Evans’ list is rounded off with one of the best directors of all time’s greatest films – Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, which saw Robert De Niro portray the infamous boxer Jake LaMotta. “De Niro is astounding,” Evans said of his 1980 performance. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it in my life. And those boxing sequences, they’ve never been matched, they’ve never been bettered for me. So, I think Raging Bull is definitely up there.”
