Do you really think you've seen every action movie that's worth watching?
If so, think again.
On Netflix, you can find all kinds of small
indie thrillers, semi-obscure international flicks, direct-to-video treasures, and low-budget
gorefests.
Many of them you haven't seen.
Some, you've never even heard of.
Low-budget, direct-to-video action flicks are far from a dying art.
Just ask Scott Adkins and Jesse V. Johnson.
Over the past 15 years, the martial artist and stuntman-turned-director have turned out
nearly a dozen savagely violent action movies, and
naturally, Adkins and Johnson's latest collaboration, Avengement, is their best yet.
In the film, Adkins stars as Cain, a former martial artist who'd teamed up with his criminal
brother, only to get stabbed in the back.
A seven year stint at England's most dangerous prison pushed Cain to his limits, and now
that he's out, he'll do whatever it takes to track his brother down and get revenge.
God help anyone who gets in his way.
If Avengement turns out to be your kind of thing, Netflix has a whole bunch of other
Adkins and Johnson joints too, meaning titles like Savage Dog, The Debt Collector, and Triple
Threat are just a few clicks away.
Beyond Skyline, a sequel to 2010's Skyline, starts like your typical alien invasion flick:
A major metropolitan city — in this case, Los Angeles — brought to its knees by an
extraterrestrial attack.
A group of survivors who are forced to flee underground, where they're slowly picked off
one by one.
An estranged father-son team must learn to put aside their differences and work together
if they want to have any chance of getting through the crisis alive.
You've seen this one before, right?
Wrong.
So, so wrong.
Despite its conventional setup, it doesn't take long for Beyond Skyline to go completely
bonkers.
By the time the movie lands in Laos, where The Raid star Iko Uwais uses martial arts
to fight off aliens as a member of an underground resistance movement, you won't even bat an
eye.
Beyond Skyline has a little bit of everything — mutant babies, human brains getting sucked
out of skulls, and some seriously impressive special effects given Beyond Skyline's shoestring
budget — and it doesn't pull any punches.
If you're squeamish, stay away.
On the other hand, if you love campy sci-fi madness, or if you just want to watch aliens
die in all sorts of creative ways, buckle up.
You're in for one hell of a ride.
"Sounds like fun."
In the world of Revenger, criminals aren't just sent to prison.
They're sent to AP 101, an impenetrable island where the worst people on the planet are left
to fight for themselves.
It's a dangerous, deadly place that nobody should want to visit — but then again, Kim
Yool isn't exactly nobody.
As a former Interpol officer who was arrested after waging a one-man war against the crime
family that killed his wife and daughter, Yool has come to AP 101 to get revenge.
He is...the revenger.
Revenger isn't as flashy as many of the most popular action films.
You won't find any long, one-shot scenes or other camera tricks here.
What you will find, however, is an able and impressive lead in Bruce Khan, who proves
he's a force to be reckoned with in his first leading role, and some dazzling stunts and
fight choreography.
Revenger is also a surprisingly funny movie, especially given the subject matter.
AP 101 may be filled with serial killers and psychopaths, but many of them act more like
live-action cartoons than real people.
They're quirky and weird and offer a welcome respite from all of the killing.
Make sure you stick around for Revenger's post-credits sequence, too.
If Revenger ever receives a sequel, things are going to get wild.
Miss the buddy cop movies of the '80s and '90s?
Then Gridlocked is for you.
In the movie, Dominic Purcell plays David Hendrix, a grizzled, no-nonsense SWAT team
leader who's paired with washed-up former child actor Brody Walker after the latter
is arrested for assault.
The idea is that Brody will ride around with David as a form of community service, but
plans quickly change after the training facility where Hendrix works is attacked by mercenaries
who are after some money locked inside.
Naturally, there's a lot of Assault on Precinct 13 in Gridlocked's DNA.
That's not an accident.
Gridlocked knows exactly what kind of movie it is — you don't cast Lethal Weapon co-star
Danny Glover in a movie and have him utter his signature line unless you want to remind
people of the past.
Gridlocked never gets too cute with its references, though, and when it's time for the well-choreographed
action to take center stage, the nostalgia takes a back seat.
Like all of these types of movies, the humor is hit or miss, but that's part of the genre's
charm.
Gridlocked is a throwback in the best way.
It's not doing anything new, but what it does, it does very, very well.
Before she was The Mandalorian's ex-Rebel shock trooper Cara Dune, Gina Carano was a
former MMA star looking to make a name for herself in Hollywood.
With Haywire, Carano found her big break.
As secret operative Mallory Kane, Carano proved that she was just as charismatic on the big
screen as she was in the ring, and that her real-life ass-kicking abilities translated
pretty well to believable stunt work.
It helped, of course, that Carano was working with one of the most accomplished and innovative
filmmakers of the modern era.
Steven Soderbergh is equally known for big-budget spectaculars like Ocean's Eleven and quirky
dramas like Logan Lucky and The Laundromat.
But over the course of his career he's made all kinds of movies.
Of course he can make a tight, action-packed espionage adventure.
He can make anything.
Carano, of course, followed up Haywire with Fast & Furious 6 and Deadpool, while Soderbergh
moved on to hits like Magic Mike and Logan Lucky.
Ultimately, Haywire is just a footnote in their careers.
Still, that's more of a testament to Carano and Soderbergh than a knock on Haywire.
If you haven't noticed, prisons — and prison escapes — seem to be action movie staples.
Well, get ready to add another one to the list.
In Jailbreak, a Cambodian movie from director Jimmy Henderson, a team of four police officers
must protect a high-profile witness during a jailbreak, a task made all the more difficult
when a crime lord named Madame Butterfly puts a price on his head.
Yes, Jailbreak treads familiar ground, but it's got style to spare.
Naturally, Jailbreak made a huge impact when it was released domestically.
For one, it's an action movie in a country that normally makes low-budget horror movies
and romantic comedies.
Jailbreak also boasts a cast full of international stars, broke box office records, and delighted
viewers with its unique blend of action and comedy.
The international reception was just as good.
Jailbreak made its way to numerous other countries and impressed the judges at the Fantasia Fest
so much that they gave it a special prize for its action sequences.
It's a defining moment for Cambodian cinema, and it's well worth your time.
If you're an action movie junkie, you've almost certainly seen Kickboxer, the cheesy 1989
Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle that went on to become a cult classic.
You've probably seen one or two of the Van Damme-less sequels, too — after all, there
were four of them.
You may have even watched Kickboxer: Vengeance, the franchise revival that sees Van Damme's
triumphant return to the franchise, and adds Guardians of the Galaxy's Dave Bautista for
good measure.
But chances are you haven't seen Kickboxer: Retaliation, Vengeance's 2018 sequel that
is, against all odds, actually really good.
Don't just take our word for it, though.
Over on Rotten Tomatoes, Kickboxer: Retaliation has a whopping 92% rating.
The story is nonsense, of course — the main villain is bioengineered for maximum violence,
Christopher Lambert runs a Thai prison, and Mike Tyson shows up for some reason — but
in this case, that's a plus.
You watch Kickboxer: Retaliation for the climactic 30-minute fight scene, not for deep characters
or a plot that makes sense.
C'mon.
This is Kickboxer.
You should know what you're getting into.
The Night Comes for Us is often compared to Gareth Evans' The Raid: Redemption and its
sequels, and for good reason.
The Raid's breakout star and fight choreographer, Iko Uwais, offers the same services on director
Timo Tjahjanto's blood-soaked thriller.
The Night Comes for Us is essentially two hours of dismemberments, decapitations, broken
bones, and bullet wounds.
It has so much blood that multiple critics have compared it to a horror movie.
But even though it's loud and messy and disgusting, it's never boring.
Tjahjanto knows what he's doing, and constantly deploys new and sickly creative surprises
to keep you on your toes.
The Night Comes for Us isn't a particularly deep movie, but it's an exhilarating one.
If you want to get your adrenaline pumping, there's no better choice.
Frank Grillo's unnamed ex-con — we'll call him Wheelman — has problems.
His 13-year-old daughter is home alone with her sketchy older boyfriend.
His ex-wife is suing for sole custody.
He's being followed by a mysterious man on a motorcycle, and oh yeah, he's also in debt
to the Boston mob, which means he has to serve as a getaway driver whenever he gets a call
from his mysterious handler, no questions asked.
Which is good, because Wheelman isn't a big talker.
"Huh?
Chit chat.
I don't chit chat, unless it's about the job."
It's a rough situation to be in, and it gets even worse when an unknown caller unexpectedly
instructs Wheelman to leave two bank robbers at the scene of the crime and take off with
their haul, which adds up to about $230,000 in cash.
Complicating things even further is the fact that Wheelman only communicates with his bosses
via cellphone, making it impossible for him to know who's really in charge — or who
he can trust.
Wheelman has an intriguing premise and manages to wring a surprising amount of tension out
of a guy who's mostly sitting behind the steering wheel and talking on his phone, but the real
draw here is the actors.
Grillo has been a reliable supporting actor for years, as have his castmates Garret Dillahunt
and Shea Whigham.
In Wheelman, all three performers get the opportunity to step up and shine, and all
of them — especially Grillo — deliver.
Come for the action, stay for the performances.
You won't be disappointed.
First things first: This isn't Master of the Flying Guillotine, the 1976 movie that's been
called "the Holy Grail of the Hong Kong martial arts movies of the '70s."
There's nothing hidden about that gem.
It's a stone cold classic, and it's influenced everyone from Quentin Tarantino to the Wu-Tang
Clan.
But The Flying Guillotine came first, introducing the world to one of the most endearingly strange
weapons in cinema history.
The flying guillotine is basically a metal disk on a rope, which its wielder flings over
an opponent's head and around their neck.
Once the guillotine is in place, spikes protrude, cutting off the victim's head.
It's bizarre and spectacularly deadly, which is why there's such a fuss when the evil Emperor
gets his hands on one and orders a squad of soldiers to become his own head-chopping hit
squad.
Unlike Master of the Flying Guillotine, The Flying Guillotine is focused just as much
on palace intrigue as it is on fighting.
That makes sense.
See, Master of the Flying Guillotine is actually a sequel to a completely different movie.
Other than the titular weapon, they have nothing in common.
Still, don't count The Flying Guillotine out.
It's basically kung-fu Game of Thrones with a few more decapitations thrown in.
Are you really going to say no to that?
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