If you’re a reader of this site and others like it then you may remember a fun little martial arts action adventure out of Cambodia known as Jailbreak. The Jimmy Henderson-directed pic won Best Action Feature and the Action! Award for leading man, actor and martial artist Jean-Paul Ly at the 21st edition of Fantasia Festival.
Jailbreak eventually made landfall on Netflix the following year for a five-year run that ended in 2023, with the film unavailable and streaming nowhere in sight. That all changed on Monday however, with the announcement of the film’s return a la VoD and leading digital platforms on March 14, from Film Movement and Omnibus Entertainment.
A ragtag team of four tough-as-nails cops are tasked with escorting the notorious gangster Playboy to prison. When he is revealed to be a stool pigeon, the real mob boss, Madame Butterfly, puts a price on Playboy’s head. This incites a swarm of hardened inmates to riot across the never-ending maze of cell blocks in pursuit of the bounty.
Trapped in the fray with their sleazy charge in tow, the officers must fight their way through a relentless gauntlet of violence armed only with their wits and lethal hand-to-hand combat skills. Featuring a jaw-dropping display of Cambodian martial arts mayhem peppered with irreverently comic antics,“ JAILBREAK is 90 minutes of kickass action screen time well served” (Film Combat Syndicate).
…That part was already in the press push courtesy of the PR firm, and I’m greatly honored.
Honestly, as scarce as some of these films are becoming and with the horror stories that befell a few films in the last several years, I honestly didn’t see this coming. It’s giving me hope. Plus, Jailbreak has an audience that deserves to own this baby one way or another, and so a digital and VOD rollout sounds pretty damn dope, particularly with all the previous (and otherwise ongoing unbeknownst to me as of this publication) talk of a hopeful sequel.
Ly joins a cast that lists Dara Our, Tharoth Sam, Céline Tran and Savin Phillip, with fight sequences by Ly and by Esa W. Sie. Watch the trailer below and slate this on your release calendars! Gosh, I didn’t see this coming.
