Kill Zone 2 (aka SPL II: A Time for Consequences)
September 27, 2016
Having finished unpacking and having (relatively) settled into our new home, and with the readings and discussion topic for my MA course not yet posted, my wife and I had time on Friday evening to watch a movie. Netflix indulged us with a Tony Jaa movie we had not yet seen. This was serendipitous as I had just been in a discussion with the eminent, Enny-award winning local designer (and friend) Todd Crapper about Ong Bok 2 – a huge piece of crap with a few good action pieces scattered within it in my estimation.
Kill Zone 2 inserts Tony Jaa and Thailand into a pretty standard Hong Kong actioner with Wu Jing as the HK counterpart to Tony Jaa. The story includes an organ smuggling ring, a sick daughter, and plenty of coincidence – standard HK fare. The plot and action aren’t bad, and are relatively engaging if you dig on HK action cinema – very similar in the need to inject melodrama and suffering into the action as South Korean actioners.
The action is superb. This is not the best Tony Jaa outing – I think that’s the Protector, but I’ll need to watch it again to see if nostalgia has coloured my perception – and it’s not up to some of Donnie Yen’s best insane action performances, but those are pretty high bars. Anything would suffer by that comparison. I liked the action a lot more than some of the movies I’ve seen recently, and I think both Wu Jing and Tony Jaa deliver satisfying performances. These guys are master thespians, but I wasn’t groaning in the emotional scenes. There were a couple of actual touching moments that I really appreciated, and that’s saying a lot.
I would give Kill Zone 2 4 hidden crescent knives out of 5. This is a solid, enjoyable actioner that delivers good performances from its leads, and allows Tony Jaa to crack heads with elbows and knees. A definite recommendation.