Wolf Pack

                                                                 
Director: Michael Chiang
Year: 2022
Rating: 5.0
With America retreating from the world, someone else will have to take their place in the heroics that used to be ours in the movies. It seems China is ready to step in. They are stretching beyond their own borders to start aiding the world. This is a fun if convoluted film that is a step in that direction. I had no idea really what was going on, but there is plenty of gunplay, heroics, sacrifice and comradery. That used to be our thing. It is easy to gripe that this is filled with Chinese bravado and patriotic propaganda - but would we say the same if it was Americans doing this? Probably not. American films have been doing this sort of film for decades. It doesn't seem that long ago that the Chinese were mainly making dreary rural dramas, but capitalism has changed that. They want the money and so are spitting out action, fantasy, martial arts film at an astonishing speed. How good are they? Not really seen enough of them to say, but they feel very generic for the most part. Having a lot of Hong Kong talent has helped. Here the main actor is from Hong Kong and another from Canada.



The Wolf Pack is a small mercenary group of five men and one woman. The woman is my latest fave, Jiang Luxia, former female Wushu Champion. Their mission is to stop terrorists from blowing up energy pipelines in some made-up Central Asia country. Or something like that. None of it made much sense to me. First though they stop off in Egypt to kidnap Ke Tong (Aarif Lee), a doctor and bring him to operate on bullet fragments in a man's head. This gets them the location of a factory that they need to blow up. They take Ke Tong along with them - and what do you know - he gets in on the fighting. The Wolf Pack has cool nicknames like Bomber, Fly and Monstrous (Luxia). There is some back story that brings Ke Tong in as a member. There are a few more action set-pieces that are fine - difficult to follow at times - but needless to say the Chinese are crack shots, the bad guys are not. Jiang acquits herself well - but only one short physical fight against another female. It is directed by Michael Chiang who helmed Fearless. No, not that Fearless.