shoot, kick, repeat

Wu Jing as Leng Feng

The home video market is constantly bombarded with an abundant of direct-to-video movies, many of which come from overseas. Nowadays, I see more imports of Asian action films than before, back when Blockbuster video still rented out VHS tapes (yes, I'm that old) and Jackie Chan was becoming recognized in the U.S. for his awesome action movies and the hilarious but dangerous stunt work he employs in all of his films. To some credit, Mr. Chan is owed a lot for introducing these type of films to the U.S.; if not for him, we wouldn't know the likes of other Asian actor stars such as Tony Jaa, Donnie Yen, Iko Uwais, just to name a few. Sometimes we get a few gems, such as Ip Man and The Raid: Redemption, and then we get the disappointments like

The Grandmaster. And then we get the type of films such as Wolf Warrior that falls somewhere in between the two. A Chinese special force sniper named Leng Feng (Wu Jing) is sent to join an elite brigade of soldiers known as the Wolf Warriors after catching the attention of his superiors for his genuinely gifted marksmanship and deadly accuracy from his last mission. However, Feng has also caught the attention of a drug lord who's brother he killed in his previous mission and hires a team of mercenaries led by Tom Cat (Scott Adkins) placing a hit on him to take him out. By now, you probably know what to expect so I'll just get to the point. Wolf Warrior isn't preoccupied in plot development; if you've seen any of the trailers for this film then you know that the focus is action and nothing more. A gunfight here and close-quarter combat scene there, and that's it. Some scenes raised a few eye brows [such as the fight with actual wolves] and I couldn't help but notice that Wu Jing's character felt a bit invincible after getting shot three times and still able to take on the enemies, a cliche I feel underwhelms the whole movie because it feels like Feng cannot be killed by whatever is thrown his way (even a landmine) but whatever. For these type of movies, logic is non-existent much like the story. At times it can work and sometimes it's better without. What you see is what you get, and while it could've been better it's not a complete dud. At best, Wolf Warrior deserves a rental.

-Reviewed by Razor, 10/1/15