When Wang Wei’s (Xie Miao) daughter is kidnapped by the mob, he will stop at nothing to find her including coming to blows with Navi (Joe Taslim) whose own investigation about her missing journalist partner collides with his more “ad hoc” method of turning up at a UFC nightclub with hammer. It is on for young and old!

Not really a complex movie, the villain of the piece is so cartoonishly evil and stupid “you killed my family!” no dumbarse! You killed your own family as you are a psycho! So stupid! Brian Le as Ho does a great knucklehead performance basing his fighting style on Donkey Kong.

Yayan Ruhian as the bow and arrow guy is not wasted and gets his big scene in the conclusion. He is coming to Melbourne for a screening of the Raid but I will miss it!

This is a different movie from the Raid movies or even The Night Comes for Us which is it is stylistically and thematically closer to. “Now there are two of them” really does change it up a lot more. Wang Wei being a mute makes his performance all the more intense as everyone is always yelling and Joe Taslim actually took up smoking for the movie as his character is a chain smoker.

As with the Raid movies there is a phalanx of stunt performers and also “Kid in the Snake Pit” actors. I am sure it is the same as the Raid where you cannot see the same stunt performer more than once or pretty close to it!

It certainly does get over the top towards the end especially the motorbike scene but I expected that! Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In also did a bit where they landed a motorbike on people and used it in a fight scene. The ice factory fight harks back to the Big Boss but no real “saw through the head” cut unless you count knocking people’s heads off who are already frozen in ice. Lots of laughs for this bit for some reason?

I would put it more in the 1970s kung fu “revenge” movies similar ones in the 1980s genre where the leads get beat up and have to go back and whoop arse. They do not stop beating in this one though. I would sure like to know their work out plan in how they kept their energy up! Xie Miao actually ended up in hospital at one point for high blood pressure so it looks to have been an intense shoot!

Don’t know what happened with the “Thai Action” scene? Was meant to launch with Ong Bak? Kind of fizzled out? To be sure it seems it is cheaper for other productions to shoot there and the Thai cast is huge in this so at least they are getting the work!

As with most movie fighting it is stuff that looks better on screen than actual proper martial arts moves but there is a combination of Kung Fu, Muay Thai, MMA, Pencak Silat and general brawling in this. You certainly would not have Yayan Ruhian in this and not have Pencak Silat. Can’t believe this is the first time he has been in a movie with Joe Taslim since the Raid.

I still really want a Star Wars movie from the Bounty Hunters comic series Yayan Ruhian’s character gets to complain “he’s not that muscular!” when being restrained from fighting the Knights of Ren by the rest of the crew.

Well worth your time if you are a fan of action or martial arts cinema. I am sure it will have a long life on streaming services and will be very popular if it gets an actual screening on the big screen like this one was. It has only screened twice in Australia on the big screen, I think?

Film details:

Director: Kenji Tanigaki

Screenplay: Mak Tin-shu, Lei Zhilong, Shum Kwan-sin, Frank Hui

Starring: Xie Miao, Joe Taslim, Yang Enyou, Jeeja Yanin, Brian Le, Joey Iwanaga, Yayan Ruhian

Cinematography: Meteor Cheung

Country: Hong Kong, China

Language: Mandarin, English, Thai, Tagalog

Length: 113m

Genre: Action

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avky8dVaqAI