Striking Rescue (2024)

Bai An (Tony Jaa), a man with a rather expert talent for inflicting physical punishment on dozens of goons at once, is going on a bit of a personal crusade through the underworld of a South East Asian (or the censors would never allow some of the elements of the plot if it took place in China) country. Turns out murdering his pregnant wife during the course of some corporate/criminal business wasn’t the villains’ greatest idea.

Because movies – supposedly - need a bit more of a plot, Bai An rescues the teenage daughter of the corporate overlord he takes to be the man behind the murder, and finds himself drawn into protecting her while still murdering his way through the underworld and what turns out to be a conspiracy.

This Chinese direct to streaming action movie by Siyu Cheng is positioned as something of a return to form of its leading man, troubled Thai action star Tony Jaa, and if you’re an old-fashioned lover of watching Jaa smash his elbow (and other parts of his anatomy) into bad guys’ heads like me, you’ll be quite happy with the fact that Jaa is indeed still a fantastic screen fighter up to all kinds of inspired physical shenanigans. One whose elbows you want to keep far away from your head.

The plot, such as it is, is decent enough to hold the action scenes together, though the film could have lost its final scene that’s built on a misguided believe we care one way or the other for a certain character, or feel the need to see them punished, as well as the Chinese morality police mandated text about how Jaa’s character is going to be punished for his violent acts off-camera, because order and virtue and blah blah blah.

Even the subplot about the teenager, the sort of thing that can get pretty annoying right quick, meant to humanize proceedings and our violent protagonist, works well enough, also thanks to a perfectly decent performance by Chen Duo-Yi (I believe) as said teenager.

The action itself is brutal and varied – as we like it around here. Cheng knows what he has in the screen fighters, martial artists and stuntpeople assembled here, and appears to see it as his job to make them look as good as possible doing their things. Which, obviously, should be a given when you direct an action movie centred on a beloved martial arts star, but I’ve seen too many directors obfuscating instead of enhancing what’s happening in action scenes to take this sort of approach for granted.

So, yes, Striking Rescue is indeed the comeback we were promised, possibly the one we deserved.