Action fans know when you hear the names Iko Uwais and Lewis Tan, it’s time to pay attention. Uwais is the jaw-dropping star of The Raid series who has become a Hollywood mainstay with supporting roles in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Snake Eyes, and Stuber. Tan, best known for Into the Badlands and Deadpool 2, recently starred in the new Mortal Kombat and was a force to be reckoned with. Together, they co-starred in the Netflix show Wu Assassins and now the show has a spinoff movie. The first trailer is here and it looks incredibly badass.
The movie is called Fistful of Vengeance and follows Kai (Uwais) and his friends Lu Xin (Tan) and Tommy (Lawrence Kao) as they track a killer from San Francisco to Thailand. When they arrive there though, they quickly realise they’re dealing with something a bit bigger than they were expecting. Here’s the trailer.
This story reportedly picks up where season one of Wu Assassins left off but it’s not being marketed that way. Nowhere in the press materials, or even the trailer, is there a reveal it’s linked to the show. The thinking must be to draw in action fans who maybe haven’t seen the show with what they assume is a standalone movie. Then, if they like it, they go back and spend several more hours with the characters.
Which, if we’re being honest, is a very solid play. This trailer doesn’t seem like it’s the sequel to a 10-hour show you may not have seen. It just seems like a movie. If you thought you had to watch 10 hours to understand this, you probably wouldn’t. And so going the opposite way makes sense.
Fistful of Vengeance premieres on Netflix February 17. Directed by Roel Reine, it co-stars JuJu Chan, Jason Tobin, Pearl Thusi, Francesca Corney, Tony Kranz, and Rhatha Phongaam.