It’s been six years too long for some action fans through December with Cleopatra’s announced acquisition of director Salamat Mukhammed-Ali’s newly titled thriller, Diamond Cartel. For this, we now have an official trailer to headline the film’s forthcoming early 2017 release and while the film certainly looks aiming to please the usual guilty pleasures, it does boggle the mind that unlike Armand Assante and the late, great Peter O’Toole, co-star and martial arts star Don “The Dragon” Wilson gets dubbed over…
The charismatic and ruthless Mussa makes a deal to purchase the Star of East Diamond from the Hong-Kong triad crime boss ‘Mr. Lo’ – but not before being robbed via an inside job by his own people aka former lovers Aliya and Ruslan. Aliya’s other former love interest and Mussa henchman gets involved setting up a veritable “who dunnit” love triangle versus Mussa over pursuit of his gem and riches. With the help of a friend determined to ferry the back-stabbing duo of Aliya and Rusian across the sea abroad, the couple nearly makes it across the borders with the loot. But Mussa’s gangsters find them just before they escape and a spectacular, violent finale that sets up a surprise ending!
So, indeed, we get something of a love story of sorts…although you probably wouldn’t know that as much of the film’s publicity doesn’t focus hugely on the film’s local Kazakhstani acting talent. Thus, the marketing here pretty much goes without saying that selling a film like this to the niche in North America means swelling up the propaganda on certain ends…like martial arts star Bolo Yeung getting in some fight action, shots of Assante firing a big ass machine gun and lots of cool shots of other big gun battles and explosions galore… Oh, and a sexy poster as well!
