STRIKING RESCUE is not a title I really understand. The movie is not about a rescue that made me say “Wow, what a striking rescue!” I guess maybe I was struck by it? I don’t know. But I do know I enjoyed the movie. It’s a Chinese production, with a largely Chinese cast, but it’s a Tony Jaa movie set in Thailand. The plot is only passable, and playing a character that’s all anger and no innocence means he lacks some of the usual Jaa appeal, but the action is voluminous and ferocious. He still has it, and tariffs have clearly not depleted the Chinese action movie industry’s reserves of elbow grease.
It opens in classic Jaa fashion, with his character Bai An wrapping those giant fists in ragged tape, practicing his trademark earth-shaking elbows, knees and kicks on a stack of tires and a padded wooden dummy, splattering water and dust through the sunbeam that lights the scene, and CG glass shards through the credits. As he hits harder and harder there are flashes of a car flipped over, a wife and daughter shot, Bai An’s cries of anguish. And then we’re back to today and he’s out in a crowded market following somebody. Right into it.
The death of his family apparently just happened, it’s on the news. They’re saying the husband/father – Bai An – is missing, and suspected of the murders. He begs to differ. He already has a whole bulletin board with the photos and the yarn and everything showing the hierarchy of the He Group, front company for a drug cartel. And he’s stalking this cocky drug dealer guy who has no idea that his thugs don’t stand a chance against this guy. Another Jaa trademark: he announces his arrival by throwing a guy into the room ahead of himself, like a brick through a window, then flying in knee-first.
Later he’s at a school, following Mr. He (Philip Keung, KILL ZONE 2)’s daughter He Ting, nicknamed Tingting (Chen Duo-Yi), and her driver/bodyguard Wu Zheng (Eason Hung).
I like how extreme it is – Bai An seems to be going Punisher on these people who just seem like… some rich businessman and his family. The daughter is very unhappy, rejecting her dad and his assistant who kind of tries to be an adoptive mother. These seem like normal problems. And Bai An approaches the kid, hat pulled down low over his eyes, you’re thinking jesus is he gonna kidnap her or something? But he just puts a tracker on her.
They got other problems. Their car gets ambushed by gunmen working for a drug dealer called Clay (Michael Mao aka Mao Fan), who has a scary right hand man named Long Tai (Xing Yu, THE THOUSAND FACES OF DUNJIA). I guess it’s the influence of THE RAID but I thought of BRAVEHEART every time the guys in this movie come running in screaming. Usually they have machetes, in this part they have guns. There are some really cool (possibly CHILDREN OF MEN-inspired) digital tricks and camera moves through and around the moving car as bullets blast through the front windshield and fists and knives come jabbing through the sides.
As Wu Zheng fights them he gets separated from Tingting, so luckily Bai An hears the gunshots from nearby and rushes in to rescue her. Yeah, it’s an action-hero-protecting-a-kid movie. A classic format. I mean I guess he sort of has her as a hostage at first, but she’s suspicious of everyone, even Wu Zheng, so she chooses to stay with Bai An.
The other main danger is a great henchwoman who wears short skirts and sunglasses with red lenses, carries two hatchets, laughs often, and just has way too much fun being wicked. While fighting Bai An she accidentally breaks a pipe with a hatchet, it sprays all over her, he kicks her and she slips on her ass. Then she cackles and says “I like it!”
I love this in martial arts movies when there are women that just get to fight against the men and it never seems unbalanced. This lady gets body slammed so many times and even thrown off a balcony, but she keeps coming back like the Terminator.
At this point I have to confess that I had trouble finding the character or actor’s name. City On Fire says the actress is Wang Chenxin (thank you Matthew Butcher on Bluesky for pointing me to this) but other reviews call her Lu Ping, played by Peng Bo (DRUG HUNTER), which I believe is the seemingly nice quasi-stepmother character. They had me wondering for a minute if that character was living a double life as this crazy ax woman and I was too slow to pick up on it, but going back over the plot I don’t see how that could be. Anyway, memorable character.
Long Tai is a good henchman too – he’s sharply dressed, and that amplifies his cockiness. Xu Ying is a 32nd generation Shaolin monk who’s in a ton of movies, but I immediately recognized him as the star of another impressively produced Chinese movie that’s hard to find English-language information on, KOWLOON WALLED CITY. It’s not unusual for the main henchman to be a more capable fighter than the boss, but I still didn’t expect he’d suddenly (SPOILER) stab Clay in the neck with a fork and move to his chair, smoking a cigar. He just abruptly takes over as the main bad guy. Honestly good for him.
There are definitely some clunky elements – some on-the-nose dialogue, a little more sadism from Bai An than is needed, and one of those ridiculous endings where text explains that everyone was punished, in case you haven’t figured out from its portrayal of the drug trade that this is very approved by the Chinese government. But overall it’s a decent rendition of this type of story, certainly enough to back a ton of outstanding action and some excellent directorial style.
There’s a good variety to the action – emphasis on hand-to-hand like I prefer, but in many different locations, including the back of a moving truck, a kitchen that gets very wrecked, on a motorcycle in a bar with a mob swinging machetes and sticks at him, Jaa vs. like 20 guys in a hallway, later a big battle in a jungle fortress with watch towers and stuff, and a more intimate one-on-one at the end.
I’m pretty sure this is one of these movies I hear about made for Chinese streaming services. Director Siyu Cheng has made eight movies since 2019, with two in 2024 (this and DESPERADO). But if they’re churning them out it doesn’t stop them from having huge, elaborate action scenes, crowd scenes, great locations, like real movies. I admit there’s not enough substance here for this to be a great one, but man does it get me buzzing. Recommended.
P.S. I failed to write down the action director listed on the credits, and it’s not on IMDb, so let me know if you know it.
May 26th, 2025 at 11:10 am
Title sounds like if The Asylum had been around in ‘93 and this is their take on STRIKING DISTANCE.