One Night in Bangkok - 3/5

This movie is a solid indie revenge flick that pays off the suspense more than the action. Mark Dacascos is great, delivering outstanding martial arts and turning in a memorable performance, but everyone else has trouble acting in basic dialogue scenes. The visual style is slick and on point, although the strip club scene plays at odds with the heart of the narrative.

Content warning: female nudity

Closest comparison: It’s like Collateral by way of John Wick.

Setting: Thriller
Plot: Revenge
Tone: Action

Only the Strong - 2/5

This movie gets its reputation as being one of the only Capoeira movies, and as such it’s one of the best. But the cheesy ‘90s plot and awkward teen acting make it a painful watch at times. The action is mostly lacking, with a few exceptions, cutting too much and feeling more like stage acting than the gritty realism the tone of the movie is trying to accomplish.

Closest comparison: It’s like Kickboxer by way of Rad (1986).

Setting: Teen Drama
Plot: Bad Batch
Tone: Coming of Age

Wu Assassins (Netflix) - 2/5

This show could have been great, and it starts off well. But like so many other shows it loses its way about halfway through. The martial arts is very good, where present, but they use drama for drama’s sake to pad out the runtime, a common trend among Netflix titles. The acting is overall mildly uninteresting, except for an ancient mystic wu assassin character who provides top tier terrible acting every moment she’s on screen. The effects are modern TV level and ultimately not even the presence of Iko Uwais and Mark Dacascos can salvage the show from boredom.

Closest comparison: It’s like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon by way of The Fast and the Furious, but without the fun.

Setting: Modern Crime
Plot: Martial Arts
Tone: Fantasy

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum - 3/5

This movie tries to expand the world-building that the first two films started, but it quickly falls apart. There are some fun action scenes, and one in an antique shop in particular that is stellar, but the rest of the movie is a blurry confusion of self-contradiction and tensionless posturing. Asia Kate Dillon is particularly atrocious, and her portrayal of a such pompously incompetent character is not only grating to watch but badly written to boot. The contrivances just keep piling up and after an hour or so everything that happens happens because the plot needs it to. The director’s affinity for beautiful cinematography has been pared down to only beautiful shots, with much of the camera work that made the other two films stand out lost and lazily lacking in this one.

Closest comparison: It’s the Jonh Wick entry that couldn’t be bothered to be any good.

Setting: Secret World
Plot: Action
Tone: Action