Paradox - Kill Zone Bangkok

The third part of the successful Hong Kong series Kill Zone is behind me and this time I'm not so impressed. The second part remains unsurpassed as the line-up of Jacky Wu, Tony Jaa and Max Zhang is just somewhere else, and story-wise I found it more interesting and entertaining. Tony Jaa has little space, stealing actually only one action scene, which is a shame. The rest is left to Louis Koo, who surprised that he can handle anything, as he hasn't shown much so far, but I was more impressed by Yue Wu as a police officer who handles kung fu superbly. The villain is also great, and while he's terrible in acting, he's a decent asshole in a fight. There are only three action scenes, two of which are great, one in the middle with Tony which is awesome, and the final 20 minute finale was also perfect, but probably won't go down in history. Visually it’s fine, but the story is unnecessarily drawn out, the action is great, dynamic, gritty and clear, but unfortunately there’s not that much of it. I liked Headshot and Wolf Warrior 2 more this year, but this one is still a decent martial arts brawler that's way ahead of the Americans. 80%. (15.12.2017)

This film needed to have Tony Jaa in it as much as possible. I don't know if he's that expensive or what, but is it so hard to understand that Tony has to have as many action scenes as possible because he's just unbeatable at them? Unfortunately, the other characters can't carry the entire film, which doesn't even have a great script. (16.03.2018)