So, after years of anticipation, staring some of the current biggest names in martial arts movies, checking progress, trailers and release dates. I finally got to watch Triple Threat. I don’t want to say it was a little bit of a let-down because it probably could have never lived up to what I built up in my head but let’s just say it could have been so much more.
So, the movie starts with a company CEO Xian Xian (Celine Jade) deciding to focus on taking down crime syndicates throughout the city. As you can imagine, this upsets a lot of powerful people. Xian basically places a big target on her head but being a powerful CEO in the spotlight, it isn’t any small job taking her out.
Cut to our mercenaries consisting of main characters Payu (Tony Yaa), Long Fei (Tiger Chen), Deveraux (Michael Jai White), Joey (Michael Bisping), Mook (Jeeja Yanin) and some other character mainly for later cannon fodder. They are attacking a compound apparently on a humanitarian mission to free hostages but in fact, unbeknown Payu and Long Fei who were just guns for hire and trackers, they are really there to free international terrorist and their unit leader Collins (Scott Adkin). The compound is attacked, one of the defending soldiers is Jaka (Iko Uwais) who’s wife gets killed. He gets injured and left for dead. Payu and Long Fei upon realising there are not there to free hostages are betrayed and also left for dead.
Skip forward a bit. Jaka blames everyone for his wife’s death including Payu and Long Fei and tracks them down. After a bit of a fight in an underground fighting pit with Long Fei, they explain to him they were also betrayed and agree to join forces to hunt down Collins and the rest of his gang.
The plot eventually leads our main protagonist Payu and Long Fei protecting Xian with Collins and his crew trying to take them all out. Jaka’s character confuses me a little, he seems to plant himself as a mole in Collins crew as he’s really on the side of the good guys.
There’s is a lot of action and shootouts but that is my main issue with the Triple Threat. Too many shootouts and not enough fight scenes. It felt more like Expendables than a martial arts flick. When the fights do happen, they are great. Not on the level of Undisputed and The Raid great but still good if only a little short most the time. The movie seems to focus more on the story and plot than the talent that’s cast which should have been the main focus.
On top of that, the plot isn’t great with a lot of scenes that’s don’t have much point. There should have been way more fights. Take my recent review of Revenger, the plot was as straight forward and simple as they come and can be described in one line. A guy comes to a prison island seeking revenge against the guy they killed his family. The movie was great because of the action and fight scenes which this should have been. Adkins and White only really have one fight each at the end. Plus, the end should have really contained some more twists and not been as predictable as it was.
Even if I go back to cheesy 80’s and 90’s movies like No retreat No surrender 2. A pretty bad movie but has tons of great and fun fights which makes it a fun and entertaining watch. On a side note, the acting all seemed pretty solid. Uwais did portray grief pretty well and a man out for revenge. Adkins has the most dialogue and seems to relish playing the bad guy. Michael Jai White is just having a great time playing his character. Bisping seemed like he would be more at home in an east end gangster flick.
I did enjoy Triple Threat, it was good mainly because of the action but not great. It could have been so much more with the talent it had to play with. Let’s all hope all these guys get to work together again in the future.
Rating: 3/5 belts
