Tony Jaa became an iconic martial arts star with the release of Ong Bak in 2003 and followed it up with the sequel Ong Bak 2 and Tom Yum Goong (Warrior King.)
He then had a bitter contract dispute in his native Thailand with distributor Sahamongkol and just seemed to fade away from the scene. He appeared in the enjoyable Triple Threat and a few Hong Kong action movies such as SPL 2 and Paradox but never regained his previous achievements.
Now he has made a new movie Striking Rescue in mainland China. a DTV movie with budget limitations but also has plenty of action for fans to enjoy.
After his wife and daughter are brutally murdered in front of him a Muay Thai fighter Bai An (Tony Jaa) goes on a furious rampage through the city on his quest to hunt down the killers–and make them pay.
Sure it’s not the most original of storylines, and while watching the plot unfold it does have the feel of a TV movie. Some bad points are the English dialogue spoken is awful, with very bad stilted delivery. Also what is odd is that Tony Jaa speaks all his lines in English but everyone else replies in Mandarin and both seem to understand each other!
But it’s the action that we wait for and here is where it does not disappoint. The choreography is excellent, with sharp editing and full-impact blows on display from punches, elbows and knees.
While Jaa is now older he still shows the power he has with furious fights, some against many henchmen at once or some great one-on-one encounters with a female killer played Wang Chenxin armed with twin axes to the climax where he squares off with veteran actor Xing Yu.
It does make you wonder why film companies, especially in Hollywood just did not use Jaa’s obvious talents properly. He gets more kick-ass action in the first 10 minutes of this film than the whole of Expendables 4!
The film is a frustrating watch in the fact that if the budget was bigger and it had decent dialogue and script it could have been a classic. Instead what we get is an enjoyable and violent mis-mash, but it shows how much he has been missed in martial arts action cinema and is a throwback to his great movies of the past.
This film has been picked up for release in the USA by the good guys at Well Go and will also be available on disc in the near future. Not sure about any other territories as yet.
FILM – 7 OUT OF 10
