Fight Against Evil 3 enjoys its North American Premiere this weekend at the fourth edition of the Big Bad Film Fest.
Actor and martial artist Xie Miao is enjoying a renaissance of sorts, lately. He’s been working in films since his heyday with action luminary Jet Li barring a brief stint away from the industry many, many years ago before coming back, but his activity nowadays is finding new life, brought in large part by the success of his starring role in Kenji Tanigaki’s The Furious. From there, anyone looking for other appearances with the actor needn’t look too far with the prevalence of the Fight Against Evil trilogy dating back to the first installment from director Qin Pengfei in 2021.
Since then, the consistency remains with Xie’s starring capacity in a trilogy that’s ultimately become China’s answer to the likes of the Veteran and The Roundup franchise among Korean audiences. Additionally, this comes in large part due to the involvement of director Yang Bingjia who also worked on the second film, in addition to Xie’s blind swordsman saga, Eye For An Eye and Eye For An Eye 2. Indeed, there’s a viable chemistry that’s kept them together leading up to the third installment of the modern action cop trilogy in Fight Against Evil 3 which plays before audiences this weekend at the fourth Big Bad Film Fest in Los Angeles.
Moreover, with Xie rightly in his wheelhouse with Yang at the helm is the kind of actioner that treads a familiar formula these days as it treks one hero’s quest to bring an end to an international human trafficking ring. That mission is carried in full by Li Hongqi (Xie), a cop who’s built his reputation through more than a decade of catching criminals for a living. The movie literally starts off with Li in pursuit of a gang of criminals he soon dispatches while filming them with phone in hand, thus leveling up on how one takes out the bad guys “singlehandedly”.
This sequence is broken up a little bit as the movie introduces Li once more in his current circumstances as he must now take a holiday with his wife’s in-laws to plan an official wedding. While in flight, he befrieds a young traveler named Xinxin (Ma Qianyi) en route to help a family member and before parting ways after landijg, but not before he reassures her trip in the taxi she gets in. Little does Li know that Xinxin’s trip is about to get cut short when an unforseen accident finds her getting into an illegal cab.
Meanwhile, Li convenes with mother-in-law Xiuqin (Diana Weng) and several other family members who take the mantle amid infighting to help Li plan things on his end. It’s not long before a call comes on Li’s phone alerting him of criminal activity from the local precinct and discovering Xinxin’s brutal kidnapping, forcing him to keep things on an even keel between his in-laws and their wedding developments, and connecting the dots to find Xinxin and other missing children, bringing him face to face with the ruthless Madam Qin (Miyi Huang), and the notorious Fishmonger (Philip Ng).
For anyone coming off of The Furious and going into this installment of the Fight Against Evil films, expect some real color and life from the characters brought forth in these stories. Xie’s portrayal of Li is as straight-laced as they come, but he’s not afraid to be a little jagged when he needs to be which adds some much-needed punch to the role. The rest of the cast gels pretty well, including and with actress Wang causing a ruckus as the incorrigible-but-caring Xiuqin who we first meet hassling the local cops before cheekily playing victim when Li enters the room. Co-star Ma is a delight to watch as a standout young talent who holds her own between the film’s contrasting transitions between the comical and the grim.
Action choreographer Du Xiaohui reteams with Xie as well following 2022’s Fighting Darksider and the Fight Against Evil and Eye For An Eye sequels. The action is shot a little more wider this time, and with a myriad of choreography beats in select fight scenes that add some jocular flair in the process. There’s even one scene where one of Li’s partners, Zhao Na (Yao Feng) squares up with a suspect in the middle of a club dance floor as a dancer starts moving in next to them, and several others in the interim with actress Wang, and with actor Cui Zhijia who reigns in some of the laughs as Chief Biao.
The more seriously-attuned fights are attributed to the scenes with Li when he and his squad arrive in an empty warehouse only to end up scrapping with the mute and blade-wielding Qin and her co-conspirator, and the finale with Ng’s villain and his two cohorts, one of whom is played by Thai action actor Winai Wiangyangkong who appears in The Furious opposite Xie; Ng’s main villain is mostly saved for the latter end of the film in a stellar action sequences that sees the Fishmonger wise to our hero’s preferred grappling and ground game and forcing him to switch it up.
I’ve only seen the second film in this trilogy and a little of the first as I’ve tried to make time, but it was ample preparation enough for me to learn more about Fight Against Evil 3 before diving in. I can earnestly say I enjoyed this thrilling action film as an aside to the awesomeness of The Furious this year, and I would even go as far as to say I hope that the protagonists of both this franchise and that of Ryoo Seung-wan’s Veteran saga cross paths. I can’t say how likely or even possible this is as someone just on the outside looking in, but a guy can dream.