Netflix 'The Shadow Strays': Timo Tjahjanto explains how 'violence and some sort of purity collide' in film

"I wanted to make a movie about longing, wanting, and this longing to be loved, ... and what if I wrap it in an action film," Tjahjanto said

Indonesian filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto continues to blow our minds with some of the most impactful action scenes you'll watch in a movie with The Shadow Strays on Netflix. Starring Aurora Ribeiro and Hana Pitrashata Malasan, Tjahjanto takes on a unique exploration of love in this thrilling assassin tale.

In The Shadow Strays 13 (Ribero) is an assassin trainee with The Shadows, under the mentorship of Umbra (Malasan). With her first big mission going wrong, 13 is essentially suspended from assignments.

When she meets a young boy, Monji (Ali Fikry), they quickly establish a friendship. But when Monji is kidnapped by a local crime syndicate, 13 is relentless in her pursuit of these criminals, even if that means going against her mentor.

"Previously I made [movies like] Headshot and The Night Comes For Us, and for most of them, they always rely on pretty much a male cast, and especially those who are already familiar with the whole martial arts world," Tjahjanto told Yahoo Canada during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). "That sort of becomes like a cheat sheet in making those films."

"I think the initial intention was to challenge myself like, 'Hey, what if I just do an action film of a similar sort of heavy weightiness, without casting martial art experts.'" As I wrote the story then it becomes something much more personal."

That personal element of the story comes in the form of love, which you may not expect in Tjahjanto's film, but adds an interesting layer of depth to the story.

"I always feel like this is a film that is a lot about love, and in the sense it's very specific. It's not necessarily a romantic love, but it is about longing and wanting," Tjahjanto said. "I wanted to make a movie about longing, wanting, and this longing to be loved, having to love someone, ... and what if I wrap it in an action film."

Aurora Ribero as 13 in The Shadow Strays (Netflix)
Aurora Ribero as 13 in The Shadow Strays (Netflix)

While The Shadow Strays has all the gore and carnage you could want, there are also emotional connections really linked to these moments.

"I generally feel violence and passion and emotion seem to be very sort of tied up together," Tjahjanto said. "I try not to see death as something that is taken lightly or fun."

"13, for example, she is a killer. Her instinctual muscle memory is to kill, but at the same time there's also this contradiction, she's also a very innocent character. She's familiar with death, yet she is, at the same time, someone pure. I guess in that sense, violence and some sort of purity collide."

When it came to finding the right person to take on the role of 13, Tjahjanto was looking for someone who had an "innocence" to them.

"Aurora, she's a relative newcomer. When I met her, she just turned 18 and I saw her in this one coming-of-age drama," he explained. "I'm a big believer of the eyes and when I saw her eyes I was like, wow, you see a rebel and yet there's a naive soul behind it."

"Some people say, 'There's no way a little girl like that can beat this grown ass man.' ... When she trained for the film, she definitely gave it all to the point where I was thinking, 'Man, she definitely can kick my ass.'"

Timo Tjahjanto on the set of The Shadow Strays (Netflix)
Timo Tjahjanto on the set of The Shadow Strays (Netflix)

There's no doubt that this epic action film will visually impress, and when it came to how he wanted the action scenes to look, Tjahjanto spoke to his art director and cinematographer about having to be "brave" to make a really bleak world.

"We have to be ballsy in terms of presenting a film with a darker tone," he said. "I maintain that as much as possible, let's not make it a film where it exists in daytime."

"How do you put people in costumes and still make them look intimidating and dangerous? You can't just put them walking around, running in daytime. So we really hold on to that genre aesthetic. ... Definitely La Femme Nikita was a big inspiration for me. Abel Ferrara films are definitely a big inspiration aesthetically with this film."

With that comes this interesting realness to the gruesome moments. They're very adult and with real stakes, which really packs an interesting punch for the audience.

"I've heard so many stories and experiences of people who got shot like seven times, who fell from a motorcycle and pretty much lost part of their brain and still [survived]," Tjahjanto said. "That sort of stuck around for me for a long time, even since I was a teenager."

"Sometimes you touch your own body and you're kind of like, wow behind all the skin there's all these complicated organs. It has so much fragility when it comes to sustaining damage. ... It's this weird sort of biological thing that I have that I think, in a weird way, is reflected on the violence that's happening on the screen in my particular films."