In an unnamed city in southeast Asia, there is a problem.
An action-packed, street-fighting, martial-arts film is about to take the world by storm, but can it break through in the U.S. market with an A-List Asian cast but no white actor to anchor the marketing campaign (I’m looking at you Karl Urban in Mortal Kombat 2).
Director Kenji Tanigaki whose work spans being a fight choreographer for John Wick 4, stunt work for Blade II, and over 50 other movies of stunt, fight, and action work brings a story of underworld human trafficking and a couple of heroes trying to bring them down.
A reporter working on exposing the human trafficking has disappeared and her reporter husband Navin is looking to infiltrate the organization and find his spouse.
Joe Taslim, an Indonesian Judo champion and actor (Mortal Kombat, Fast & Furious 6, Star Trek Beyond), plays Navin, the martial-arts expert journalist on a crusade to continue his wife’s work and hopefully find her.
A mute handyman and kung-fu enthusiast Wang Wei has his tween daughter visiting from mainland China. When she gets kidnapped by the human traffickers, he is on a mission to find and save her. Xie Miao, a wushu champion and actor (New Legend of Shaolin and My Father Is a Hero both with Jet Li) plays the mute father with a hidden dark past.
Both men meet and have the obligatory “I don’t know which side you’re on” fight – which is kind of epic. After figuring out they are on the same side, they join forces to take down the human traffickers and find Wang Wei’s daughter. Lots of hard-hitting multi-discipline martial arts action follows with nods to classic Hong Kong movies. Part of the action calls back to Bruce Lee’s 1971 movie The Big Boss and takes place in an underworld ice factory. Other action sequences look inspired by early Jackie Chan movies.
Another actor of note is the nigh unstoppable bad guy HD played by Brian Le, who with his brother Andy Le did fight choreography and stunts for Everything Everywhere All at Once. He took inhuman amounts of damage and inevitably popped back up ready for more.
The action takes our heroes into the snake pit where they must hold off countless hostile gang members as they try to save the stolen children as corrupt police officials hold back crowds of people brought to the scene by Navin’s live stream of the rescue.
If you like high action martial arts films then this hits on all cylinders. The audience at the Seattle International Film Festival 2026 was cheering, gasping, and laughing (mainly at HD’s durability) and being caught up by the film in ways that I haven’t seen since the finale of Avengers Endgame.
Rating: 10/10
The Furious screened at the 2026 SIFF and opens nationally on June 12, 2026
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Produced by Bill Kong, Shan Tam, Frank Hui
Written by Mak Tin Shu, Lei Zhilong, Shum Kwan Sin, Frank Hui
Directed by Kenji Tanigaki
Starring Xie Miao, Joe Taslim, Yang Enyou, Brian Le, Joey Iwanaga
