Director: Ekachai Uekrongtham
Year: 2014
Rating: 6.0
Ever since Taken, traffickers in women have become one of cinema's go to scuzzy bad guys. If you make them Eastern European, you get extra points. And nothing wrong with that. Dolph Lundgren took an interest in the whole sordid world of trafficking and made a movie. In which he kills a lot of them. Along with Tony Jaa. For $9 million this DTV production really punches over its weight. There is a ton of action and at the end I think they decide to just blow up whatever was still around. That they got this cast - Ron Perlman, Michael Jai White, Peter Weller and Hong Kong actress Celina Jade (who Wikipedia weirdly says, "is nominated as one of the four greatest beauties in Hong Kong besides Carol Cheng, Lydia Shum and Amy Yip". Some jokester?) is surprising for this amount.
Lundgren is a walking enormous block of wood. He clearly hasn't spent his salary since his Rocky days on acting lessons. When he attempts emotion at the very end of the film, you worry his face may fall apart. But damn, he is only a few years younger than me, and he is still making these action films - these B action actors who just keep doing it are amazing. Such a tough guy. He gets shot a few times, blown up and is in the hospital hooked up to everything the hospital could charge you for - and a few hours after being shot, rips all the wires off and gets out of the hospital and a few hours later is killing bad guys. My kind of tough guy. Having just been hooked up lately, it hurt to watch - how do you do that? I nearly cry when they take the bandages off.
Dolph gets a Thai director, Ekachai Uekrongtham - take a crack at pronouncing that, on board. So, one might expect he is one of the crew of famous Thai action directors - but in fact he is the director of the wonderful Beautiful Boxer from 2003. There is some muy thai action in that, but it is mainly the story of a transexual muy thai fighter and a true story. But Lundgren liked that film so much that he hired him and he does a fine job - the film looks way more expensive than its budget.
There are initially two tracks to the story. Lundgren in America going after a human trafficking gang run by the Serbian Dragovic (Perlman) and his four sons, Meanwhile, in Thailand Jaa is going after the same gang. Eventually they meet up, realize they are on the same side and decide to kill everyone together. And there is a lot of it. Often quite brutal. Before they team up Lundgren and Jaa go at one another - felt a bit sorry for Jaa having to slow it up so that Lundgren could stick with him. Later Jaa has a better fight against White - he has some good Tony Jaa moments. Love watching him in action. There is a lot of location shooting in Thailand - these films always make Thailand look wonderful - and it is - also some scenes shot in go-go bars which I understand exist in Thailand. Much better than I was expecting. I came for Jaa but Lundgren is a tough bastard.
Year: 2014
Rating: 6.0
Ever since Taken, traffickers in women have become one of cinema's go to scuzzy bad guys. If you make them Eastern European, you get extra points. And nothing wrong with that. Dolph Lundgren took an interest in the whole sordid world of trafficking and made a movie. In which he kills a lot of them. Along with Tony Jaa. For $9 million this DTV production really punches over its weight. There is a ton of action and at the end I think they decide to just blow up whatever was still around. That they got this cast - Ron Perlman, Michael Jai White, Peter Weller and Hong Kong actress Celina Jade (who Wikipedia weirdly says, "is nominated as one of the four greatest beauties in Hong Kong besides Carol Cheng, Lydia Shum and Amy Yip". Some jokester?) is surprising for this amount.
Lundgren is a walking enormous block of wood. He clearly hasn't spent his salary since his Rocky days on acting lessons. When he attempts emotion at the very end of the film, you worry his face may fall apart. But damn, he is only a few years younger than me, and he is still making these action films - these B action actors who just keep doing it are amazing. Such a tough guy. He gets shot a few times, blown up and is in the hospital hooked up to everything the hospital could charge you for - and a few hours after being shot, rips all the wires off and gets out of the hospital and a few hours later is killing bad guys. My kind of tough guy. Having just been hooked up lately, it hurt to watch - how do you do that? I nearly cry when they take the bandages off.
Dolph gets a Thai director, Ekachai Uekrongtham - take a crack at pronouncing that, on board. So, one might expect he is one of the crew of famous Thai action directors - but in fact he is the director of the wonderful Beautiful Boxer from 2003. There is some muy thai action in that, but it is mainly the story of a transexual muy thai fighter and a true story. But Lundgren liked that film so much that he hired him and he does a fine job - the film looks way more expensive than its budget.
There are initially two tracks to the story. Lundgren in America going after a human trafficking gang run by the Serbian Dragovic (Perlman) and his four sons, Meanwhile, in Thailand Jaa is going after the same gang. Eventually they meet up, realize they are on the same side and decide to kill everyone together. And there is a lot of it. Often quite brutal. Before they team up Lundgren and Jaa go at one another - felt a bit sorry for Jaa having to slow it up so that Lundgren could stick with him. Later Jaa has a better fight against White - he has some good Tony Jaa moments. Love watching him in action. There is a lot of location shooting in Thailand - these films always make Thailand look wonderful - and it is - also some scenes shot in go-go bars which I understand exist in Thailand. Much better than I was expecting. I came for Jaa but Lundgren is a tough bastard.