Back in the 80’s, this type of movies were made by Americans with Chuck Norris or Sylvester Stallone as action heroes, but now the world has changed and that kind of badass war action films, loaded with cheap cinematic patriotism to highlight all the virtues of the action hero are made in China. Some of them are even produced by the goverment with propaganda purposes. Some are big blockbusters as Wolf Warriors, but others are just low budget productios with zero interest that surfaces in the VOD niche.
Wolf Warriors is a military action thriller directed by Wu Jing himself, in which he played a Chinese special force soldier that is confronted by a group of dangerous foreign mercenaries who are hired to assassinate him by a vicious drug lord.
90 fast paced minutes of action fest with Wu Jing as action hero, supported by Nan Yu (The Expendables 2) , facing a terrific villain portrayed by Scott Adkins, a man who was born in the wrong decade, because back in the 80’s he would have been a big mainstream star as Van Damme.
In this film, the action is more focused on shoting and war scenes, however, the big attraction and what all the fans of this type of films were waiting for is the final showdown between Wu Jing and Scott Adkins, a final face off that was a big disappointment, being so brief and lacking of the craftmanship that is expected by two kings of the genre as this two are.
Two years later, Wu Jing presented to us a sequel that made up all the flaws of the first installment, taking the franchise to a higher new level. Wu Jing delivered another amazing work as an actor and director, turning himself into an “one man army ” and keeping the quality of action movies nowadays above the sky.
An ambitious sequel with an international flavour, that takes the action to Africa, with an international cast that includes Celina Jade (Triple Threat), and Frank Grillo (Warrior) as main villain.
The plot shows our hero retired from his duties as soldier and protector, living a quiet life on the sea, who comes out for retirement to fight against a group of sadistic mercenaries that are targeting civilians.
Most of the dialogue is in English, and is easy to notice that the producers were trying to make a movie more suitable for foreigner audiences, having as result a superior film than its predecessor, that was filled with breathless action sequences that delivers in all aspects, delivering a solid entertainment product.