Starring Iko Uwais, Lewis Tan and Juju Chan. Fistful of Vengeance is the spin-off or follow up to the Netflix series. Wu Assassins.
Upon discovering Fistful of Vengeance dropping on Netflix I didn’t even associate it with Wu Assassins as I’m not going to lie, I’d completely forgotten about Wu Assassins, it was that memorable.
Wu Assassins tells the story of Kai (Iko Uwais) becoming the chosen one. Liu Kang style and gaining the power of the Wu Assassins. The power of a thousand monks. This is to defeat the modern-day Wu warlords who each possess an elemental power.
Sounds awesome right? Well, it’s quite underwhelming as he doesn’t really seem to gain any powers other than being able to disguise his appearance into a previous monk who happened to be Mark Dacascos.
Wu Assassins ended with all the warlords being defeated and Kai sitting in his brother’s restaurant living it high for a bit. Ying Yang who Kai thought dead walks in, tells him it’s not over as the building starts to shake.
Fistful of Vengeance almost picks up right after whatever event happened. Jenny Wah, one of the main co-stars in Wu Assassins, Kai and Lu Xin (Lewis Tan) childhood friend and sister to Tommy Wah (Lawrence Kao) is killed. We don’t see how or who has done it. We only see Tommy finding her and taking something from her hand.
So, Kai, Lu Xin and Tommy go on a mission to avenge Jenny’s death and find out who did it.
We then see them start in a club with a weird chi vampire sucking everyone’s chi and turning them into bald grey martial arts zombies who of course attack our heroes. No one in the club seems to mind the weird bald guys and the massive fight breaking out as they happily continue to dance along to the music.
Our heroes defeat all, then right out of X-Men, Professor Xavier freezes everything and starts talking to them through different people telling them to come to meet him in Bangkok. Turns out it’s not professor X unfortunately but William Pan (Jason Tobin, Warrior) who tells them about Ku A Qi a supernatural being who’s trying to resurrect Pan Gu, pretty much a god who can reshape the world in his own image. It also happens to be Ku A Qi who killed Jenny and it was her mysterious item found in Jenny’s hand. Pan Gu was defeated by the first Wu Assassin. So, I guess the Wu Assassin doesn’t just fight warlords of the Wu. William Pan and Ku A Qi happen to be two sides of the same coin. Pretty much brother and sister. One has power over the mind, the other over the body.
So, our protagonist’s ventures out to find Ku A Qi who kills 5 of the most powerful triad
bosses and takes all their muscle.
Along the way, Kai, Tommy and Lu Xin meet Preeya (Francesca Corney) who kind of acts as their guide. She is an acquaintance of Tommy.
Zan Hui (Juju Chan) makes an appearance once again being on the wrong side. This time fighting for Ku A Qi.
Kai’s powers seem a little more prominent in Fistful of Vengeance over Wu Assassins. Originally, I couldn’t figure out what exactly his powers were other than being able to change his appearance and the Wu warlords’ powers having no effect on him. This time we are informed he’s stronger and faster than any human and now can throw out chi waves, sending enemies hurtling through the air. Also, there’s this what looks like fancy Pat-A-Cake, Kai and his enemies keep performing on each other’s chest like their heads are going to explode, Fist of the North star style. Unfortunately not, as it always seems to have zero effect and everyone just fights through the fancy Pat-A-Cake move.
The fights once again are nothing to write home about. Standard martial arts fights, nothing Scott Adkins/Tony Jaa spectacular and nothing really brutal like we are used to with Uwais. One of the end fights almost feels like a music video with clubbing music playing and the camera moving about zooming in and out. Even the very end fight is a massive letdown, the antagonist doesn’t come across as near unbeatable at all like they should, a bit more Pat-A-Cake being played and he’s done.
In Conclusion, much like Wu Assassin, Fistful of Vengeance is forgetful. No Mark Dacascos this time around as his talent was completely wasted in Wu Assassins, making his appearance feel almost like a cameo role. I’ve been a fan of Iko Uwais ever since I saw Merantau and The Raid. Both brutal and awesome. The Raid 2 and The Night Comes for Us again, are brutal and awesome. Fistful of Vengeance just feels like a run of the mill supernatural martial arts movie. To non-martial arts fans it might seem like great fun but us hardcore fans, you will get bored halfway through the movie as I did. What really gets to me is Netflix is churning out sequels to Wu Assassins and there is still no word on the truly awesome Netflix series, Kengan Ashura.
Fistful of Vengeance is available on Netflix now.
Rating: 2/5 Belts
