Gareth Evans' action flick The Raid: Redemption took festival audiences by storm at TIFF 2011, Sundance 2012, and SXSW 2012, and the director is already hard at work on the sequel, Berandal (which means "thug").  Speaking to Steve at Sundance, Evans said the sequel will be bigger, and he hopes to "bring car chase elements to it as well. So we have like a cool fight scene where you go inside a car, fighting against four people as it’s speeding along a one-way."  The Raid is an intense ride for its hero, Rama (Iko Uwais), so I'm sure he'll have time to rest up.  He barely made it out of the tower with his life.  So how much time will he have for some much-needed R&R?

Two hours.  Hit the jump for more.

Evans took to his Twitter page [via The Playlist] yesterday to tweet the following:

Ok Raid 2 tidbit, we start shooting on January 19th and the first scene takes place 2hrs after the first film ends.

Of course, this doesn't mean that all of Berandal takes place two hours after the ending of The Raid.  Evans simply said "the first scene".  Even a supreme fighter like Rama can only fend off so many machetes in such a short time span.

As for filming, Evans and his Indonesian crew were able to turn The Raid around in a relatively short amount of time.  Despite the larger budget ($3 million for Berandal as opposed to $1 million for The Raid), I hope Evans can get the sequel finished in time for a TIFF 2013 debut.

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Image via Sony Pictures Classics