An action packed martial arts film from Asia with a loaded cast comes to Blu-ray + DVD this week via Well Go USA. Triple Threat stars Tony Jaa (Ong Bak), Iko Uwais (Raid), Tiger Chen, Celina Jade, Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White, Michael Bipsing, and Jeeja Yanin. Some of these stars have previously worked together, and several of them should be familiar as they have become staples in the genre, but never have they teamed up for a movie like this before. The hype has been a long time coming for this movie that was trying to be like The Expendables, but the result is not as explosive as it could have been.
The film opens up with a military jungle operation that appears to be about rescuing innocent captives, but the op is a decoy for something sinister. During the battle, Iko Uwais’ wife is killed, but he manages to survive. He is determined to avenge the death of his wife and the dozen others that were killed in the camp eradication. Scott Adkins, who often plays the villain role, reprises exactly that — he plays Collins, the leader of several bad mercs, assassins really, (White, Bisping, Yanin) who are trying to fulfill a hit contract out for Celina Jade’s character. She plays a billionaire’s daughter and her desire is to donate a massive some of money into the local economy (of a fictitious Asian city) in order to help people get legitimate jobs instead of having to turn to the crime syndicates for a living. Some nefarious wealthy people do not want to see this happen as that would interrupt their flow of money, so a hit is put out on her as she prepares to put into effect her generous donation.
Without trying to reveal too much about the story, Tony Jaa and Tiger Chen’s characters are mercs with a conscience. They’re friends and use their skills for good, these days. Caught in the middle of this hit contract, they find themselves helping Celina’s character survive. Over the course of about two days, events rapidly and very violently escalate. Director Jesse V. Johnson covers a variety of bases including a car chase, firefights, and empty hand combat. Character and story developmental scenes are spaced in between the action-heavy scenes. I can’t say I became invested in any of the characters, but attempting to flesh them out a bit in between the main calling of this film (action) was worthwhile, but the result was lackluster. Some scenes, both action and non-action, are cringe-worthy and flat. Overall, the film is worth watching, even if I wasn’t enthralled for the majority of the time. My favorite aspect of the movie was seeing the combination of fighters and styles, though the fighting choreography leans towards Tony Jaa’s knee-and-elbow-smashing Muay Thai.
Technical quality is excellent on Blu-ray, with a very crisp and bright 1080p image and a well mixed 5.1 DTS-HD English audio track and English subtitle support. Several trailers for other excellent-looking Well Go USA films are included on the disc, as are two trailers for Triple Threat. Additionally, there is a ten minute feature of cast interviews whereby we see snippets of interviews with the stars of the movie. It would have been neat to have a roundtable type of interview or even a group audio commentary track of such, but that’s not included here. The interview segments are worth a once over though, and it’s neat to hear the stars talk about filming in Thailand and working with one another.
Triple Threat should have been a lot better with the cast they had available. Still, for action fans, it’s worth watching, but I don’t anticipate it making many ‘top ten favorite’ lists.
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