Striking Rescue (2024) – Review

Quick Thoughts

1. Grade – B
2. When it comes to action cinema, things don’t get much better than watching Tony Jaa use his fists, elbows, legs and knees to obliterate villains
3. There are way too many characters
4. It’s nice that Jaa wants to flex his acting chops by playing a widowed husband/dad, but the dramatics slow down the face-punching dramatics
5. The hallway fight will make you very happy. 

After Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (2003) and The Protector (2005), Tony Jaa became an instant legend in the action community with his insane stunts and brilliant fight choreography (watch this scene from The Protector – it’s amazing). However, after a few misfires, the leading man roles stopped pouring in and he had to settle for supporting player roles in fun action movies like Skin Trade (2014),  xXx: The Return of Xander Cage (2017), Furious 7 (2015), Triple Threat (2019), Monster Hunter (2020). When news came out that Jaa would be starring in a new action film distributed by Well Go USA, the action world celebrated because the action genre is a better place with an in-form Tony Jaa elbowing overmatched drug dealers.

The good news is the excellent fight scenes in Striking Rescue allow Jaa to beat people up in warehouses, drug dens, city streets, hotels, motels, underground clubs, hallways, balconies, and country roads. During the opening fight Jaa knees a stuntman so hard that the song “Nobody Does it Better” started playing in my head. Jaa’s physicality is unrivaled and it’s nice that director Siyu Cheng (Land Shark, Desperado, The Tai Chi Master), understands that a wide shot of Tony Jaa kneeing a drug dealer in the face is pretty great. The action highlight takes place during a hallway fight that was featured in Mubi Notebook’s excellent “The Best Action Scenes of 2024” list (always a good read). The great part about Jaa’s fighting style is that it works in wide open spaces and tight hallways because his knees and elbows don’t need much space to deliver concussions. 

Striking Rescue tells the story of Bai Ann (Tony Jaa), an unstoppable violence machine who seeks revenge on the criminals who killed his wife and child. His quest for revenge puts him on the radar of a gang of over-the-top villains who will murder anyone (kids and women included). Led by a mustache-twirling villain (Xing Yu – Flash Point, Kung Fu Hustle, Ip Man), and his axe-wielding maniac bodyguard (who is the junior varsity version of Hammer Girl from The Raid 2) the gang is comprised of hundreds of disposable goons who get obliterated by Bai Ann and a guy named Wu Zheng (Eason Hung). Zheng works as a bodyguard for He Yinghao (Philip Keung), a millionaire Chinese businessman whose imported goods aren’t inspected when they arrive in Thailand. Since his imported good aren’t inspected, this puts him in the crosshairs of drug dealers who would love to avoid inspections. Things soon turn sour between YInghao and it leads to a lot of chaotic rescue missions.

The rescue that involves a lot of striking happens when Yinghao’s pre-teen daughter Ting (Chen Duoyi) is kidnapped by the criminals. This forces Bai Ann (who thought Yinghao was responsible for his family’s death) and Zheng to fight their way through dozens of villains as they try to save Ting and get revenge on the criminals.

There are way too many characters in Striking Rescue, and the plot gets pretty muddled with Bai Ann dealing with Mandarin-speaking villains, but it didn’t bother me because I got to watch Tony Jaa break neck bones with his elbows. If you are a fan of Tony Jaa, you will love the showcase he gets in Striking Rescue.