The 2011 action film “The Raid” is set and produced in Indonesia. The story follows an Indonesian National Police tactical squad attacking a Jakarta apartment block controlled by a dangerous drug lord. Both the film’s setting and its production identity are strongly tied to Indonesia, making it the single canonical answer.
Welsh filmmaker Gareth Evans wrote, directed, and edited the film after moving to Indonesia and becoming interested in pencak silat, the country’s traditional martial art. He discovered Iko Uwais, a pencak silat practitioner who had worked as a delivery driver, and later cast him in the film. Uwais also helped design the fight choreography with Yayan Ruhian.
The film was originally titled “Serbuan Maut,” Indonesian for “The Deadly Raid.” It premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and became known internationally as “The Raid: Redemption” in the United States. The American subtitle was added because the distributors could not secure the original title.
A common mix-up is assuming that an English-speaking director makes the film British or Welsh. Evans’s nationality is separate from the film’s country of production: its language, performers, story, martial-arts tradition, and production companies identify it as Indonesian cinema.