Doctor Strange (2016)

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Doctor Strange (2016)

Mind-bending, universe-hopping, time-traveling sorcery from Marvel, charting the origin story of wise-ass neurosurgeon Doctor Stephen Strange. He’s a mix of Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes, conveniently played by go-to geek icon Benedict Cumberbatch who adds stage-like gravitas to an otherwise very silly movie – aided in no small part by equally laudable supporting thespians like Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tilda Swinton. Strange learns a valuable lesson in humility when his sports car crashes and his bones are destroyed. With all of western science exhausted, he journeys to Kathmandu in search of the healing mind powers of The Ancient One (Swinton) and …

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Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011)

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Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011)

Michael Jai White reinvents the Never Back Down franchise with a socially conscious, character-driven sequel. None of the original characters return, thank god. Instead, White – in his directorial debut – charts the personal and competitive exploits of four angry young men hoping to take part in an underground, UFC-style cage fighting event called The Beatdown. The four bond and eventually fracture over the trials of their ex-con sensei, Case Walker (White), who lives like some kind of buff homeless guy in a trailer and faces perpetual grief from racist white cops. No one is infallible, and the film does …

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KFMG Podcast S01 Episode 09: Jerry Trimble

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KFMG Podcast S01 Episode 09: Jerry Trimble

“My purpose in life is to empower kids. The acting, the writing, the producing, that’s the icing on the cake – that’s the fun stuff.”

Here’s a real treat for fans of competitive kickboxing and martial arts movies, as I have a conversation with former world champion Jerry “Golden Boy” Trimble. Kentucky-born Trimble took the kickboxing world by storm in the 1980s by winning four consecutive world championships before embarking on a highly successful film career. His debut feature was alongside Jet Li in Tsui Hark’s The Master, before taking starring roles in a number of action films produced by the …

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Hard Target 2 (2016)

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Hard Target 2 (2016)

Competent head-thumping action film starring the ever-dependable Scott Adkins, who gets to go native in a Thai jungle while marauding rich folk take a pop at him with their crossbows in sporting reference to John Woo’s fun Van Damme film from 1993. This isn’t a direct sequel as the title suggests; Reiné borrows a version of the same story and updates it with more tech – drones, GPS, missiles on motorbikes and so on – and adds Woo-like symbols of doves, gun fu and slow motion. Adkins – who has become a champion flag-bearer for this type of visceral, low-budget …

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Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016)

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Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016)

After 27 years, a well-oiled and muscular cast take another run-up at the Kickboxer story. This reboot/remake never quite gets off the ground, due mostly to a confluence of unrealised subplots, a woeful script and some questionable performances. French-Canadian stuntman and walking jawline Alain Moussi spends the film in an expressionless, half-naked bubble as the supposedly bereft and vengeful Kurt Sloane, whose brother (played by the late Darren Shahlavi in his final film role) is murdered in the ring by the silent and deadly Muay Thai champ Tong Po (Dave Bautista, looking extraordinary). Moussi unfortunately struggles to add emotional heft …

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Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)

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Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)

Finally, a decent Universal Soldier sequel. After a number of false starts, John Hyams (son of long-time Van Damme collaborator Peter Hyams) has managed to revive this stunted sci-fi franchise as a bleak, industrial, pseudo-scientific action yarn for the modern age, or something resembling The Bourne Identity‘s idiotic cousin. A rebel militia kidnap the Russian President’s kids and haul up at Chernobyl (it’s actually Bulgaria) strapping bombs to the nuclear reactor and demanding the release of political prisoners. Their secret weapon: a supercharged, indestructible, genetically modified UniSol (played by UFC fighter Andrei “The Pit Bull” Arlovski). Actually, they have two …

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SPL II: A Time for Consequences (2015)

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SPL II: A Time for Consequences (2015)

Enjoyable if over-baked Hong Kong action film, which is essentially a drawn-out contrivance to have Tony Jaa and Jacky Wu fighting together in the same film. It takes its sweet time to get there, although we are spoiled early on with a completely inconceivable bust-up between the two action heroes in an interrogation room. Jaa’s ‘no wires’ motif seems to have been omitted from his contract (again) as the occasional wire fu moment brings the film out of its moody, contemporary crime setting and into the realms of uncanny valley. Much of the action is played out over a huge …

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KFMG Podcast S01 Episode 08: Cengiz Dervis

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KFMG Podcast S01 Episode 08: Cengiz Dervis

“Every time you go through those ropes, you may never be the same again. And I knew that every time.”

British actor and former world kickboxing champion Cengiz Dervis is my guest on this episode of the Kung Fu Movie Guide Podcast. This interview took place in the same week Cengiz discovered that he had landed a large role in a new 10-part TV series produced by Marvel’s Avengers star Jeremy Renner and The History Channel called Knightfall. The series, based around the Knights Templar, is validation for over 10 years of hard work in trying to make it as a …

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KFMG Podcast S01 Episode 07: Don Niam

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KFMG Podcast S01 Episode 07: Don Niam

“I always liked different things. I was never one to go with the norm.”

We have one of action cinema’s most beloved baddies on the show today: it’s the one and only Stingray from the low budget 1994 Godfrey Ho head-kicker Undefeatable, played by all-round super nice guy Don Niam. As he explains in this extended chat, Don landed the role because of the intensity in his eyes and his long hair. He talks about his experiences making the film which has now become a cult classic, not to mention a viral YouTube sensation. The final fight scene between Don Niam …

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X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

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X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Perhaps the most underwhelming of the rebooted X-Men prequels so far, this one does little to push the franchise forward apart from providing another weightless apocalyptic showdown for our mutant heroes to don the spandex. Oscar Isaac plays an ancient, all-powerful, god-like mutant called Apocalypse who is cryogenically frozen in ancient Egypt only to resurface in 1983 to form a new army and destroy the world. He plucks out young newbies like Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Angel (Ben Hardy) and Storm (Alexandra Shipp) – so we get to see their troublesome origin stories – and also Magneto (Michael Fassbender), who has …

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