A Frenetic Fight Flick
Summary
Striking Rescue delivers everything you’d want from a Tony Jaa movie with plenty of breakneck fight scenes and a huge bodycount. It’s let down by a script that literally makes no sense at times and some of the acting isn’t the greatest either. Still, if you’re looking for an hour and 50 minutes of ass kicking then this will do the job.
Plot: A veteran Muay Thai expert goes on a take-no-prisoners mission of revenge after his wife and daughter are brutally murdered by mysterious forces.
Review: I’ve been waiting to see Striking Rescue for months and it never got a theatrical release here; last night I finally got to watch it and for the most part it didn’t disappoint. Action wise this is classic Tony Jaa with all the fight scenes you can handle, a huge bodycount and a corridor fight that nearly rivals The Raid.
The story is straightforward enough with Jaa’s character Bai Ann wanting revenge on the man he holds responsible for the death of his wife and daughter, but all may not be what it seems. We get a few twists and aren’t quite sure who the real villains are, which keeps things interesting.
Where the film falls down is the script; a lot of the dialogue makes no sense whatsoever so you’re spending most of the runtime trying to understand what was just said. It doesn’t really matter though as we’re just here to watch Tony Jaa destroy his enemies and he does so using his signature fighting style which never disappoints.
Striking Rescue is a little too long and could have maybe trimmed a few minutes, but it’s certainly never boring with fight scenes every few minutes.
Xing Yu is always good value as a villain and is at his smug best here; his showdown with Jaa is one of the many action highlights.
Overall, Striking Rescue is Tony Jaa doing what he does best and is a bone crunching fight flick. Sadly, the script and some of the acting is questionable at best, but the action makes up for those shortcomings.