I have been eyeing for this movie for quite a while since I saw the poster as it had 3 martial art actors in 1 film. But I did not get the chance to see this one until last night. As it did not look like a movie that my wife might have enjoyed, I decided to see it by myself. And so what was the movie about? Let us get into detail below.
Brief Story Line
Payu (Tony Jaa - xXx: Return of Xander Cage etc) and Long Fei (Tiger Chen - Man of Tai Chi etc) were mercenaries hired for a special mission into the forest of Thailand. During this mission a lot of complications arose and they met with an Indonesian security named Jaka (Iko Uwais - The Night Comes for Us etc).
Meanwhile, a very rich Chinese woman named Xiao Xian (Celina Jade - Wolf Warrior 2 etc) went to Maha Jaya city to help the poor and needy become independent, which would ruin the criminal syndicate's grips on the people. Hence they hired a group of assassins led by Collins (Scott Adkins - American Assassin etc) with several highly skilled members that included Deveraux (Michael Jai White - Spawn etc), Joey (former UFC champion Michael Bisping) and few others.
During the chaos when Collins team were trying to kill Xiao Xian, they stumbled into an unlikely opponents in the form of Payu, Long Fei as well as Jaka. So what would happen when this two dangerous and skillful team fight? Find them all in this full action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Before I saw the movie, I happened to read the synopsis in the cinema's website (it was only playing in 1 cinema chain), and it was a lot different from the movie's actual premise. And since I do not want to provide too much spoiler of the movie's plot, I tried my best to put as little detail as possible in the Brief Story Line section. So do not be confused when you saw it not really the same as the movie's synopsis.
Now, about the movie itself, it was just like I predicted in term of fight choreography. It was wonderfully crafted and amazingly done. I really enjoyed the different fight styles these 3 martial artists brought into the movie, with Iko Uwais' Pencak Silat, Tony Jaa's Muay Thai and Tiger Chen's Kung Fu all blended nicely. If you are fans of these actors, then it would be quite a dream come true. And what I liked the most was the fact that the enemies were great action actors (and actress) as well. Scott Adkins was no stranger to full action movies and with the addition of Michael Jai White, Michael Bisping and Jeeja Yanin, it made the fights more realistic and not one sided.
However, aside from those hand to hand combat scenes that were awesome, the gun fights were not enjoyable for me personally. I do not know why, but it felt like scenes from 80s action movies which were great back then, but not so entertaining now. The blood effects were not impressive either during those scenes, but they were adequate during the fights. In most cases of full action movie, the plot was almost always neglected. And this one was no exception. The scenario & story was not award worthy at all with plot holes here and there, but that was not the main attraction anyway. People usually come to see this movie just for pure entertainment. And in that, the movie was pretty successful, especially the fighting part (the finale fights scenes were pretty awesome). It was probably due to the movie's director Jesse V. Johnson was quite experienced in directing several action movies and being a former stunt coordinator himself.
I found the movie to be quite unique as it had multiple languages when they converse. Indonesian, Chinese, Thai and English were used by the actors & actresses. It should come as no surprise since this film was a joint production of Thailand, Chinese and US companies. Oh, one thing I noticed despite having an R rating, I thought the movie's fight scenes were not extremely violent, gruesome & bloody like in other Iko Uwais or Tony Jaa's movies (The Raid, Ong Bak to name a few). In here, some of the fights were violent but those wanting to see the more "sadistic" approach might feel something's missing.
Overall, this was a stereotype full action B movie, with best parts in term of hand to hand fight choreography, but a bit poorly executed in the gun fight scenes (especially the special effects). Fans of martial arts should be satisfied having seen 3 different fighting styles in one movie played by several amazing martial artists. However, if you want a movie carefully done with amazing scenarios, or you wish to see a lot more blood in a really violent action movie, you might not like this seemingly senseless action movie. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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