Prepare for brutal and bloody revenge in Gareth Evan’s crime drama series Gangs of London

2011’s utterly superb The Raid: Redemption set a new standard for bone-crushing, adrenaline-pumping action sequences that very few productions have managed to match since. It was a breakout success for star Iko Uwais as well as writer, director, and action choreographer Gareth Evans. Evans hasn’t done much in the years since – a sequel The Raid 2, the Dan Stevens-led feature Apostle, and a couple of shorts – but now he’s heading to the small screen with an explosive new series.

Gangs of London is the upcoming action crime drama series that’s a co-production between the UK’s Sky and the US’ Cinemax. It’s the latter that immediately grabs my attention because Cinemax has given us the best action you can get on the small screen in its original series Banshee – so Evans working with them to create a new series is a match made in heaven. Evans is also set to direct half of the ten episodes, with Corin Hardy (The Hallow, The Nun) and Xavier Gens (The Divide, Hitman) sharing the remaining five between them.

Joe Cole (A Prayer Before Dawn, Peaky Blinders) stars as the newly-anointed head of a London crime family after his father (Colm Meaney – Hell on Wheels, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) is assassinated. The uneasy peace between the various crime organisations calling the city home is thrown into disarray as he embarks on a violent and bloody path to track down those responsible for his father’s death and exact his retribution.

The show’s official plot synopsis is as follows:

When the head of a criminal organisation, Finn Wallace (Colm Meaney) is assassinated, the sudden power vacuum his death creates threatens the fragile peace between the intricate web of gangs operating on the streets of the city. Now it’s up to the grieving, volatile and impulsive Sean Wallace (Joe Cole) to restore control and find those responsible for killing his father.

Let’s take a look:

Well hot damn! You only need a few glimpse to know those fight sequences are amazing – brutal and violent in the way only Gareth Evans can pull off.

What do you think?

Gangs of London will premiere sometime later this year. It also stars Sope Dirisu, Lucian Msamati, Michelle Fairley, Mark Lewis Jones, Narges Rashidi, Jing Lusi, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Brian Vernel, Orli Shuka, Richard Harrington, Jude Akuwudike, and Emmett J. Scanlan.

Last Updated: February 14, 2020