Some decent fight choreography and a couple of well-staged shootouts decorate the Malay thriller “The Assistant,” an action pic for those who like their violence bloody and something close to non-stop.

It takes a very long while to get going, and some of those kick-slice-punchouts pass slowly enough to look like brawls filled with stage-punches thrown at half speed. But it’s gonzo enough for genre fans to check out, even if it isn’t on a par with the best Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Thai or Vietnamese one-man-against-many bloodbaths. Not yet, anyway.

Zafik (Iedil Dzuhrie Alaudin) is fresh out of prison. He makes a beeline for his old house, long-abandoned, and weeps. His wife and son died while he was serving time.

No promises to “help you out” by the old friend Sam (Henley Hii) who has become a tycoon in the intervening years, comfort him. No advice from former cellmake Huan (Kin Wah Chew) eases his pain. Kuan can’t even talk Zafik out of his need for revenge.

“He has to pay for this,” Zafik hisses (in Malay with English subtitles). It’s the “He” that he’s uncertain about.

His wife and child were murdered, and nobody was brought to justice. Sam and Huan are at a loss. The police aren’t even consulted, as it’s accepted wisdom that they’re lazy and corrupt.

But there’s this fellow Zafik keeps stumbling into, a cocky, gangster-groomed giggler name Feroz (Hairul Azreen). As Zafik takes a “collection” job from Sam as his offer of “help,” he’s going to be toting around cash, and sooner or later he’s going to get jumped. That’s when Feroz steps in and kicks ass, giggling all the way.

He’s a “cousin” of Zafik’s late wife, he says, and he’s out for revenge. But while Zafik wants answers and information, Feroz would rather catch, torture and kill his way from junkies to dealers to whoever really did the deed, and their reasons.

Some gangsters see them coming from a long way off. Others never know what hit them. But one by one or two by two, a reckoning is on its way up the ladder.

Martial artist and stuntman turned brawling lead Azreen makes a convincing and amusing badass. Alaudin has the subtler job, reacting to the mayhem, shrieking “You’re CRAZY” every so often and generally requiring rescue from his aggressive “assistant.”

The script’s twists are too obvious to even bother guessing. And that slow start can be discouraging, if you’ve just dropped in on this title at random.

But the action picks up, the sadism spreads, the blood flows and the giggling reaches a higher pitch as we march, car-chase, torture and kill our way towards a climax, sluggishly chased by an anti-climax.

It took a few years for Hong Kong, Thai, Korean and Indonesian action pictures to hit their stride, push the envelope and reset the standard with the “Old Boy,” “Ong Bok,” “The Raid” and so forth.

Adrian Teh’s “The Assistant” shows how Malay melees are beyond their baby steps now and almost ready for the big time.

Rating: TV-MA, violence

Cast: Iedil Dzuhrie Alaudin, Hairul Azreen, Henley Hii, Farali Khan and
Kin Wah Chew

Credits: Directed by Adrian Teh, scripted by Chi-Ren Choong and Adrian Teh. A Netflix release.

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