Kill Zone series

(On Cable TV, November 2019) I have probably been looking in the wrong places, but it seems to me that it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to see a Hong Kong martial-arts action movie. (Are they even making as many as they once did?)  While Kill Zone 2 isn’t all that great a film, at least it’s good enough to satisfy that specific craving. A sombre story about undercover cops, drugs, and organ harvesting, this is not a fun or funny action movie: it’s generally glum, shot in sombre black-and-blue by director Soi Cheang, and has characters going through histrionics on a predictable arc. It’s unusually gory (something that the organ transplant subplot only heightens) and the script frankly isn’t all that easy to follow. But Kill Zone 2 does get better as soon as the fight sequences begin: Having Tony Jaa as a headliner would be meaningless without being able to take advantage of his physical talents. I’m not sure that it’s all that interesting if you’re not looking for a stereotypical action film, but I was hungering for exactly that, and was more satisfied than not.