“The ability to stage well is a skill and a talent that I value above almost everything else. And I say that because there are people who do it better than I’ll ever be able to do it after 40 years of active study. I just watched Mad Max: Fury Road again last week, and I tell you I couldn’t direct 30 seconds of that.” – Steven Soderbergh
When the director of Out of Sight and Ocean’s Eleven to the action genre and the mad geniuses who excel at it, we’d all do well to pay attention. Making any kind of movie can be a tough endeavour, but bringing thrills and spills to the screen with all their velocity and impact intact, while maintaining spatial coherence, narrative momentum and emotional complexity, takes a particular kind of talent. And if it’s done right – done well – an action movie speaks a universal language an audience anywhere in the world can understand and appreciate.
The action movies in SBS On Demand’s collection come from all over the globe, and they’re a wild bunch. Some are gritty, some are goofy. Some move fast and break stuff, some burn slow and then explode. Maybe not all will be to your liking but the great thing about action is that it’s a flexible kind of genre, with a variety of styles, tones and approaches. If Jackie Chan risking his neck doesn’t do it for you, Keanu Reeves jumping out of a plane just might.
Point Break
Even in the world of high-concept cinema, there are some concepts so high they’re positively stratospheric. But honestly, which studio wouldn’t give the green light to the tale of a former college football star turned rookie FBI agent who infiltrates a gang of surfers who bankroll their endless summer with a string of bank robberies? Point Break may sound ridiculous when you try to describe its plot in a sentence but Kathryn Bigelow’s “100% pure adrenaline” masterpiece – and frankly, this may be the finest film in the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker director’s excellent body of work – shows what you get when everyone involves not only commits to the bit but goes above and beyond, treating their work with the utmost sincerity. As FBI agent (or should I say “F!B!I! AGENT!”) Johnny Utah, young Keanu Reeves is a tiny bit rough around the edges but the origins of his Speed / Matrix / John Wick charisma are abundantly evident; as his gun-toting, philosophy-spouting frenemy Bodhi, the late, great Patrick Swayze is the exemplar of Zen and the Art of Being a Badass. Unofficially remade as The Fast and the Furious and officially remade in 2015 (but we don’t talk about that), the original still holds up three decades after its release. Accept no substitutes.
Point Break is streaming at SBS On Demand.
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Point Break
action • thriller • 1991
action • thriller • 1991
The Roundup
When it comes to actors and performers, we applaud range and versatility. For ages, we’ve used the term ‘triple threat’ to describe someone adept at acting, singing and dancing; in recent years, the sporting term ‘five-tool player’ has come into vogue when discussing stars who can cut it onscreen as a hero, a villain, a lover or a clown. There are times, however, when we want one specific thing from a specific star…indeed, it’s what makes them a star. And the successful career of Korean bruiser Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee) is predicated upon one specific thing: what if there was a guy who was really, really good at punching? This is of course reductive – Ma has a gruff charm, a deadpan sense of humour and even at times an underlying sweetness that work nicely in conjunction with his burly physique and powerhouse fighting abilities – but let’s not kid ourselves here: we’re pushing play on movies like The Roundup, in which his police detective character travels to Vietnam for a routine extradition and finds himself entangled in the hunt for a vicious serial killer, to see Ma take out the trash, one uppercut at a time. And if you’re in the mood for more Ma after The Roundup, you’re in luck – this is the second in a series of four adventures, with a fifth on the way.
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The Roundup
action • Crime drama • 2022
action • Crime drama • 2022
The Heroic Trio and Heroic Trio: Executioners
There’s nothing quite like your first Hong Kong action movie. As a Westerner, you may have thrilled to the escapades of Hollywood crimefighters and superheroes, and there’s a lot to be said for what these movies bring to the table. But seeing something made by greats like John Woo, Tsui Hark or Ringo Lam for the first time and wondering not only “How did they do that?” but “How did they get away with doing that?” is an unparalleled rush. It’s not only the seeming disregard for life and limb in the filmmaking that sets such movies apart, though; it’s also the anything-goes verve in the storytelling department. 1993’s The Heroic Trio, directed by the usually down-and-dirty Johnnie To (Drug War, Breaking News) in a wild departure from his traditional style, throws everything at the wall in having its three heroines Wonder Woman (Anita Mui), Invisible Girl (Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh) and Thief Catcher (the irresistible Maggie Cheung) overcome their differences and join forces to combat a black-magical, baby-snatching eunuch, while Trio’s quasi-sequel Executioners (released the same year) switches tones and adds a touch more grit by having Mui, Yeoh and Cheung unite in a post-apocalypse HK to take down a masked maniac monopolising the city’s water supply (shades of Fury Road!).
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The Heroic Trio
action • fantasy • 1992
action • fantasy • 1992
Heroic Trio: Executioners is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
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Police Story and Police Story 2
One of the great things about being an aficionado of action movies is having your eyes opened and your horizons broadened by exposure to the action cinema of different countries and cultures, especially if you step back in time a decade or two. There’s a good chance that the makers of the Hollywood blockbuster you caught at the multiplex drew inspiration from watching the masters of the craft at work, usually by way of a janky VHS copy of a bona fide classic, so there’s a unique thrill to be had watching the original and best. And ‘original and best’ is one of the best ways to sum up Jackie Chan. Years before he finally became a global star in American-backed movies, Chan’s name was like a secret handshake among action-movie junkies in search of wild rides you weren’t 100% sure its Hong Kong stunt-machine star would actually survive. There are many to check out, of course, but 1985’s Police Story and its 1988 sequel, both starring and directed by Chan, offer our hero doing what he does best: kicking the heck out of his enemies while putting personal safety on the line in a dizzying array of dangerous setpieces. The Police Story stories are pretty boilerplate stuff – Chan as police officer Ka-Kui versus various HK baddies – but the action is pulled off with a combination of pinpoint precision and utter go-for-broke recklessness. What a feeling!
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Police Story
action • 1985
action • 1985
Police Story 2 is streaming at SBS On demand.
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Jackie Chan's Police Story 2
action • 1988
action • 1988
The Vault
A lot of action we’ve been discussing here involves kicking, punching, shooting or driving with little regard for the rules of the road. To which you might give a hearty and full-throated “Yeah!”, and you’d be justified in doing so. The thing about action, though, is sometimes it’s not violent at all. Sometimes action involves scams, schemes and capers that are intricately choreographed and perfectly timed down to the millisecond. And sometimes they’re pulled off by people on the right side of the law, but isn’t it more fun when it’s done by people on the wrong side of the law but the right side of justice? A bit of vicarious rule-breaking is a very pleasurable way to while away a chilly Friday night on the couch, after all. And that’s what The Vault provides by assembling a multinational crew of crims (led by The Good Doctor’s Freddie Highmore, here playing another smarty-pants mastermind, this one an idealistic engineering student) to relieve the Spanish authorities of a cache of 17th century gold coins tucked away in an impenetrable – you guessed it – vault. It’s not exactly reinventing the wheel, this one, but it does provide a smooth, scenic ride in some enjoyable company.
The Vault is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
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The Vault
action • Crime drama • 2021
action • Crime drama • 2021
‘71
The thing about action in action movies is it must be doled out carefully, even sparingly. A period of calm before the storm heightens one’s anticipation and makes the storm all the more impactful. Take a blockbuster franchise like, say, Michael Bay’s Transformers saga as an example of how not to do it – without giving the audience a moment or two to catch their breath and get their bearings, they’re bludgeoned into submission by a cacophony of twisted metal. An example of how to do it right? ’71, a white-knuckle thriller set during the early days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. When British Army rookie Gary (Jack O’Connell) is separated from his platoon during a violent skirmish between warring Catholics and Protestants, the unarmed soldier must survive the night in hostile territory. The main feeling ’71 inspires is dread, with Gary unsure of who to trust or how to react, but when the story erupts into violence or carnage, it does so with the impact of a speeding train, thanks to the taut, muscular direction of Yann Demange.
'71 is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
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'71
action • thriller • 2014
action • thriller • 2014
Sonchiriya
While some action movies deliver their payload with grace and flair, others deal in grit… indeed, some are so gritty you can almost feel the heat and dirt on your skin. India has long been a cinematic powerhouse, churning out vivid, distinctive works in all manner of genres, but in recent years the global community of film fans has really started embracing India’s action pictures and their robust, go-for-broke energy. Abhishek Chaubey's Sonchiriya operates in a less flamboyant mode than many of the country’s biggest hits, taking a tough, subdued approach reminiscent at times of The Wild Bunch’s Sam Peckinpah in telling its story of a band of bandits roaming the desolate ravines of Madhya Pradesh, fleeing from the law and fighting with one another. Haunted by their violent histories, the leaders of the gang are given a chance at redemption when they encounter an upper-caste woman desperately sheltering a young assault victim. But are the ghosts of the past too powerful to defeat?
Sonchiriya is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
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Sonchiriya
