The Action We Knee-d: Striking Rescue (2024) Review

Director: Cheng Siyi

Notable Cast: Tony Jaa, Chen Duo-Yi, Eason Hung, Xing Yu, Philip Keung Ho-Man, Yu Bolin, Mao Fan

 

Although Tony Jaa has seen his fair share of little cameos or more minor secondary roles throughout the years, lately, he’s taken chiefly roles as part of an ensemble or as a second lead to someone else. Were the days of a Tony Jaa lead film already over?

Well, if there’s any industry that can revitalize a career in action with minimal risk and maximum reward, it’s the damn Chinese streaming industry. So, in a strange twist of fate, it’s not flirting with Hollywood that would reignite Jaa’s leading man career, but it’s a straight-to-streaming action flick like Striking Rescue. Not that this one is going to find a ton of new fans, but it’s definitely going to light the fire for a lot of action fans with its blend of baseline action drama, brutal action beatdowns, and a very shouty, darkened performance by our leading hero, the hero of elbows and knees. Striking Rescue is the kind of film his fan base has been asking for - light on plot, heavy on beatdowns.

Triple Threat (2019)

Director: Jesse V. Johnson

Notable Cast: Tony Jaa, Scott Adkins, Iko Uwais, Tiger Chen, Michael Jai White, Celina Jade, Michael Bisping, Jeeja Yanin, Ron Smoorenburg, Monica Mok

Hype can be a challenging thing for a film. As soon as Triple Threat was announced, the hype was already at maximum. Between the impressive ensemble cast, the director, and the general tone that immediately came with it, Triple Threat was immediately an action fan dream – particularly from the martial arts variety. Even with all of that riding along for the journey, including how long the film was taking to get a release in the US, Triple Threat is a massive action cinema treat. It looks hype in the eye, says “talk, talk, talk” and then knocks its lights out. The fact remains, even with some smaller issues that arise here and there, that Triple Threat delivers on its promises. It has bigger than life characters, a wildly efficient plot, and enough action to shake the foundations of cinema. It’s a film that certainly gears what it does towards its distinctive audience, for better or worse, but for someone like myself I could not have had a better time watching the film.

Paradox (2017)

Director: Wilson Yip

Notable Cast: Louis Koo, Wu Yue, Tony Jaa, Chris Collins, Gordon Lam, Ken Lo, Jacky Choi Kit, Stephy Tang Lai-Yan, Chan Hon-Na, Vittaya Pansingram

Also Known As: SPL: Paradox

Wilson Yip has become one of the more interesting creative forces to arrive in the modern era from the Chinese film industry. Both as a director and producer, he has had a hand in creating some of the most iconic franchises in the last 20 years from China and his work with the iconic Donnie Yen truly skyrocketed the talented actor and martial artist into stardom. Yet, he doesn’t necessarily play things safe with his films. His latest, released under the title Paradox in English, is a ‘spin off’ of one of these franchises, the popular SPL films. While Paradox has yet to receive an official US release - for the record, the SPL films were retitled as Kill Zone for the US release so it may or may not acquire that title too, it’s a film that certainly should. It’s perhaps the weakest of the three SPL films thus far, but it’s still a film that dabbles in a lot of interesting dark territory with some stellar performances and blisters its audience with impressive action courtesy of the legendary Sammo Hung.

xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017)

Director: DJ Caruso

Notable Cast: Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Kris Wu, Ruby Rose, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev, Toni Collette, Samuel L Jackson, Nicky Jam, Rory McCann, Michael Bisping, Ariadna Gutierrez, Hermione Corfield, Tony Gonzalez, Neymar Jr.

Fifteen years is a long time. In the grand spectrum of things it’s not a super long time, but for a franchise like xXx, it’s long enough to create a James Bond meets X-games knock off, lose your key star who refuses to return, try and replace him in an inferior sequel, die, become a footnote in the history of the action films, allow said original star to revitalize two of his other franchises, and then recruit a series of new talent and the original star back for a surprise third entry. A third entry that, in all seriousness, is easily the best of the franchise. “How can this be,” you ask. “How can xXx: Return of Xander Cage exist?” Considering that Vin Diesel has elevated two of his other franchises (The Fast and the Furious and Riddick) from the bowels of hell, is it that odd? What does make it odd is that Return of Xander Cage is so much fun. While the first two entries have their merits as B-movie entertainment, they leave a lot to be desired, but Vin Diesel has learned a lot from the re-emergence of his other two franchises and takes those lessons to heart for this third entry. It’s not as good as either of those series, just in principal it lacks a sense of grounded seriousness, but Return of Xander Cage is outrageously entertaining. What can I say except that, despite some very distinct eye rolling at the first third of the film, I had a blast.