Boy Kills World’s Biggest Trick Is Making A Raid Villain A Good Guy (& A Mentor)

The upcoming martial arts action movie Boy Kills World will see Bill Skarsgård portray a warrior raised in the jungle, and it will also show an alumni of The Raid movies in a very ‘against-type’ role. The directorial debut of Moritz Mohr, Boy Kills World focuses on a young mute and deaf boy who seeks refuge in the jungle after the murder of his family. This leads the young protagonist, known only as “Boy”, to meet a mysterious martial arts master, played by Yayan Ruhian, who trains him to become a warrior, with Skarsgård’s Boy subsequently seeking revenge on his family’s killers. Boy Kills World will be quite a switch for Skarsgård, who is well-known for his portrayals of sinister villains like Pennywise in Andy Muschietti’s It movies and the Marquis de Gramont in John Wick: Chapter 4. However, what is just as big a switch is Yayan Ruhian’s leap into a mentor role after his own extensive career in villain roles.

Yayan Ruhian made his film debut in Gareth Evan’s 2009 directorial debut Merantau, in which he plays Erik, a friend of Iko Uwais’ Yuda who becomes a reluctant antagonist due to his criminal connections. Ruhian subsequently delivered his break-out performance in 2012’s The Raid: Redemption, with Ruhian playing the psychotic villain Mad Dog opposite Uwais’ Rama. Ruhian’s chilling charisma and truly amazing skill as a martial artist made him a show-stealing villain if ever there was one, and it also led to Ruhian finding a career niche as nigh-stoppable villains in martial arts films ever since.

Ruhian’s memorable villain performances have included such hits as The Raid 2 (with Ruhian in the new role of conflicted gang enforcer Prakoso), a cameo as Tasu Leech in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the formidable Ifrit in the Malaysian movie Wira, and one of the Baba Yaga’s Shinobi enemies in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. Yayan Ruhian’s skill at playing intimidating villains with punishing martial arts skills has made him a very powerful presence in his martial arts movie career, especially with Ruhian himself often being the smallest character on-screen who can still easily take down much larger opponents.

While Ruhian has also had some heroic roles, even these have often tapped into his talent for playing villains as part of his character arc. This is most notably seen in Ruhian’s role as Huana in Liam O’Donnell’s Beyond Skyline and Skylines, with Huana initially shown as a human antagonist who becomes a valuable human resistance fighter against the franchise’s alien invaders. Still, the on-screen persona Ruhian has cultivated in his career is decidedly one of the villainous sort, which shows just how much of a switch his martial arts mentor role in Boy Kills World really is for him.

While some of Ruhian’s villains have been reluctant antagonists or coerced into working for crime syndicates, Ruhian’s villains have still consistently been unrelenting beasts in battle, while his odd heroic or anti-heroic roles have shared that same character trait. Ruhian’s portrayal of Boy’s martial arts mentor in Boy Kills World is likely to be one of the biggest outliers in his career yet. Going from a sociopathic Silat master like Mad Dog in The Raid to a wise warrior mentor in Boy Kills World is a difference of night and day character-wise, but Ruhian could also make his Boy Kills World mentor unique even among other martial arts movie teachers.

The remote jungle setting of Boys Kills World itself is a world removed from the calm serenity of Mr. Miyagi’s garden in The Karate Kid franchise. At the same time, it’s a good bet that Ruhian will bring the same no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners warrior persona to Boy Kills World as he has in his past villain roles. In effect, Boy Kills World could very well have Yayan Ruhian embodying a Pencak Silat master with the same level of raw, no-compromise toughness as Mad Dog, only this time training Skarsgård’s Boy to use his fighting skills for good instead of evil. That alone could make Yayan Ruhian one of the most unique martial arts movie mentors ever in Boy Kills World.

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Are you excited to watch Boy Kills World?