Movie review - Striking Rescue

Striking Rescue ***1/2 (out of 5) Tony Jaa is essentially the Bruce Lee of Thailand. He’s a gifted martial artist with black belts in multiple disciplines. He does his own stunts without CGI or wires. His films have reliably delivered plenty of high-octane action with varying degrees of story significance. Jaa’s resting face seems to be one of anger, which serves him well in this hard-hitting revenge story,

We see Jaa’s wife and daughter being murdered during the opening credits. The whole film consists of working his way up the criminal echelons to kill whoever did them in. It’s a classic formula that never gets old in the right hands, whether being executed by Jason Statham, Scott Adkins, Jet Li or any other martial artist with a SAG card (or its equivalent in the dozens of other countries pumping these out). Along the way, he winds up protecting the daughter of a rich guy who just might be one of those responsible for his tragic loss.

Some of Jaa’s vehicles require little or no emotional range beyond justified anger about the form of evil du jour. Offhand, I can’t recall any romances, though his love for domesticated elephants is quite profound in the pair of Protector movies which, along with three Ong Bak films propelled him to international acclaim. A long sequence in The Protector, in which Jaa fights his way up a wide circular, multi-story stairway ranks among the most stunning in the genre. The skill required to choregraph and execute that sequence made me a fan. Striking Rescue features more plot complexity and character delineation than usual without sacrificing his unique style of ass-kicking. Jaa’s Muay Thai uses more knee and elbow strikes than other disciplines. It ain’t pretty but it works real good.

All the types needed for one of these are well-represented, including the relatively recent trend of having a hot, skilled psycho-bitch among the male-dominated enemy ranks. This one wields two hatchets, providing another bit of novelty. Jaa’s fans will be pleased, and newbies are likely to join them. That’s about all you need to know, folks.

(Striking Rescue, in Mandarin, Thai and some English, with subtitles, debuts on digital formats on 4/15/25, and Blu-ray on 5/13 from Well Go USA.)