A war movie without the war. This is a flagrantly nationalistic film exalting in the technical, mental and physical superiority of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which is so full of bombast, martyrdom and gun worship that it would work quite well as a military recruitment tool. Jacky Wu Jing – who also acts as writer and director – is a top sniper assigned to the secret Wolf Warrior division, who is dropped somewhere in rural China on a training mission before western mercenaries show up and shit gets real. The gweilo forces have been hired by a millionaire crook on a personal vendetta to kill Jacky after he took out the criminal’s drug-pushing brother in a stand-off with the PLA. The film starts to go awry when the stranded Chinese heroes are attacked by a pack of wild, computer-generated wolves. It looks really bad, and from then on, it’s clear we’re on dodgy ground. The mercenaries are led by Scott Adkins in an unfortunately wasted villain role. He kills for money instead of national pride in a thinly veiled swipe at western capitalism. His duel with the constantly perspiring Wu Jing is a rather curt affair, and not quite the zinger you would hope for. The film zips along too quickly to build any sense of character, and despite being relentlessly earnest, it ends with a tacked-on blooper reel as a way of retrospectively adding a sense of fun to the film.

AKA: Wolf War; Wolf Warriors.