A Working Man (2025) & Mutiny (2026)

 Jason Statham vs. Human Trafficking: A Working Man and Mutiny

The more time that passes, the more apparent it is that Jason Statham has become this generation’s Steven Seagal. At least when he’s in action mode: unlike Seagal, Statham can switch to British criminal mode and occasionally into villain mode. But like Seagal, his action movies dictate that he has to be either a former cop, a former special forces operative, a former intelligence, or any combination of the three. He is also borderline unbeatable in his fight scenes, not too unlike Seagal. But unlike The Rotund One, Statham has kept himself in tip-top shape over the past quarter of a century since he started hitting it big. And he has more natural charisma than Seagal ever could muster, even at his best. But like Seagal, if you watch enough of his movies, they all start to feel rather interchangeable.

Jason Statham's follow-up to the sleeper hit that was The Beekeeper—I wonder how many people watched that because they liked it, and how much because there simply wasn’t anything better to watch at the time--was A Working Man, which reunited with that film’s director, David Ayer. Here we have a film about human trafficking. Now, let us all remember that Seagal himself has fought human traffickers on multiple occasions, most notably in Out of Reach. But given A Working Man’s release date, I’m guessing that Statham and company were more inspired by the runaway success of The Sound of Freedom than Seagal’s film.

The plot involves the kidnapping of the daughter of Statham's employers, who (yawn!) are like a surrogate family to him. For the record, the family is Mexican, which doesn’t have much bearing on the story, but there you go. Statham is a former British operative whose job took him away from home for long periods of time, which meant he wasn’t around when his wife passed away. His father-in-law has principal custody of his daughter and is fighting for sole custody under the impression that Statham is a violent man who has no business being a dad.

Once the daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas), is kidnapped by low-level Russian mobsters, Statham swings into action. (Actually, he goes to see his old war buddy for “permission” first, which buddy is played by David Harbour in a glorified cameo). He starts with the shady bartender at the last establishment—Jenny had been celebrating her first semester of college by getting a fake ID and going bar hopping—the girl had been seen at. This puts him into conflict with some local grunts for the Russia mafia, which leads him to mid-level lieutenant, Wolo Kolysnik (Jason Flemyng). He learns from Wolo that the man’s errant son, Dimi (Maximilian Osinski), was probably the one responsible: Dimi has his hands in all sorts of illegal activity that the other Russian mobsters do not wish to be involved in…such as kidnapping women and whoring them out to the highest bidder.

Because nobody that meets Statham—his name is Levon Cade, but we’ll just call him Statham---lives to tell the tale, it isn’t long before a higher-level mafia boss, Symon Karchenko (Andrej Kaminski), is on Statham’s trail. Apparently Wolo was Yuri’s brother or something. Meanwhile, Statham’s investigation puts him into contact with a gang of biker meth dealers, led by a African-American former special forces operative named Dutch (Chidi Ajufo). Dutch leads him to Dimi, but Statham can’t act until he knows where Dimi is. And it will only be a matter of time before Jenny’s rebellious attitude will get her in trouble with the prospective clients and Dimi’s enforcers, Viper (Emmett Scanlan) and Artemis (Eve Mauro).

On one hand, the film does take its time setting up a rather complex web of relationships between criminals. There are a lot of mini-bosses for Statham to deal with…I didn’t even mention the two unhinged mafia enforcers that Symon’s boss sends to assist him. On the other hand, the film is much too long and spins its wheels in the third act, especially when it introduces the Completely Random Corrupt Cops. Also, much like The Beekeeper, there was far too much profanity in this, especially from Artemis, who swears like she was in a Rob Zombie movie. We’re not talking about Quentin Tarantino “swearing with finesse.” It’s just F-bombs for the sake of F-bombs.

The fight scenes are generally pretty good, staged by Guillermo Grispo. Guillermo’s credits include The Kingsman films and some of the more recent Star Wars projects, like “The Acolyte” and Rogue One. There’s a short fight at the beginning between Statham and some (presumably) Trem de Aragua members hassling a member of the construction team he works for. That has him using a bucket, a pickaxe, and his fists…like a brutal Jackie Chan fight. The martial arts highlight is the fight at the biker bar, which sees him taking on a whole room full of drug-dealing bikers. Good choreography overall. The ending is more of a bullet ballet, but is a disappointment because his final showdown with Dutch is just too easy (which is where the film really feels like a Seagal flick), and his showdown with the two crazy assassins is even more so.

Although less successful than The Beekeeper, A Working Man still did reasonably well for the sort of generic action film that usually gets relegated to direct-to-video status. However, Statham's last two movies--Shelter and Mutiny--have been box office disappointments. I wonder if audiences have figured out that Jason Statham just keeps on making the film over and over again. Or maybe 2026 has really set the stage for successful blockbusters that the last two years didn’t do, so there was simply no way to compete with the likes of The Odyssey and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Mutiny plays like a rehash of both The Beekeeper and A Working Man. Statham plays a former special forces operative and policeman (seen that before) who is working as a bodyguard for a shipping magnate in Thailand...who serves as a sort of surrogate family for him (seen that before). When bad people cause problems in the of his surrogate family (seen THAT before), he kicks into action to get revenge (seen THAT before) and go on a rescue mission save people from human traffickers (SEEN THAT BEFORE!!!).

The human trafficking element plays like a secondary element to the revenge aspect, although both threads more or less dealt with concurrently. It’s just that the people being trafficked often disappear for large swaths of the movie, at least until the final reel. In that way, Mutiny starts to look a little like The Transporter, but without the car.

The film puts a little more emphasis on the suspense elements than the action. There is a lot of Statham sneaking about the hull and the depths of the ship, trying to avoid conflict where he can. Assisting him is the third-in-command of the ship, a former Navy girl named Angie (Annabelle Wallis, of The Mummy and Anabelle). In this regard, it feels a lot more like the original Die Hard than, say, Under Siege, which was more outright action-oriented.

The action is pretty good, although a little sparse at times. The fights were staged by Godefroy Rykewaert, whose credits include Statham’s own Shelter from this year and the much-maligned The Crow remake. Much of the action is gun-oriented, but we get a narrow corridor knife fight and a big fight involving a fire axe at the end. The knife fight showed up in the red band trailer, in which we see Statham rip a man’s face open with the shackle of a padlock. But then it goes into Martial Club territory, and I’m always down for fights like that (that are well shot and staged). The final fight between Statham and the ship’s captain (Roland Möeller, of Skyscraper and Atomic Blonde) is more brutal Hollywood brawling, including the use of a fire axe (I watched this after several days worth of watching Hitman 3 shorts on Youtube, so I was pleased to see him kill people with an axe).

Mutiny probably has less to say about human trafficking than A Working Man did. The victims play more like an extra wrinkle in Statham’s quest for revenge—and an explanation of why the bad guys are so bad—than actual characters. I mean, we hope they are rescued before the mercenaries sent to pick them up can rape them, but the film is so preoccupied with Statham skulking about the ship that we forget about them whenever they aren’t onscreen. We never really learn who they are, how they were kidnapped, or what exactly the mercenaries’ aims with them are: cheap labor? Slave labor? Sex tourism? All of the above?

After watching The Beekeeper; A Working Man; and Mutiny in rapid succession, I sort of feel like I don’t need to watch anymore Statham films. Or, I don’t expect them to differentiate themselves much more from this template. That said, I do wonder if Statham will find himself relegated to direct-to-video films if the Beekeeper sequel fails to take off with audiences. But who am I kidding, I’ll probably keep on watching his movies regardless.

Hero Dream (1992)

Hero Dream (1992)
Chinese Title: 淫妖豪情
Translation: Lewd Demon Passion

Starring: Chin Siu-Ho, Chin Kar-Lok, Carrie Ng, Michiko Nishiwaki, Lau Siu-Kwan, Hung Fung, Hon Yee-Sang, Ka Ling, Sophia Crawford
Director: Lau Siu-Kwan
Action Director: Ma Yuk-Sing, Wong Choh-Wah

Hero Dream is a film I’d heard about before, probably thanks to Keith Allison’s review at Teleport City. The general gist of the review was: “Parts of this movie represent the bygone days of the best of modern Hong Kong action, but it’s really just a porno movie.” That more or less sums it up. It has a great action cast, a few decent fight sequences, a large helping of gunplay…but it’s mostly just a skin flick. This is one of those movies that I could see developing a cult following today, as much of the salaciousness revolves around LadyBoys (or transsexuals).

The hero of our movie is Hao (Chin Siu-Ho, of Fist of Legend and The Tai Chi Master), your standard-issue Hong Kong policeman with superior martial arts skills and competence with any sort of firearm imaginable. Hao is married to Kiki (Carrie Ng, of Crystal Hunt and Naked Killer), who has just discovered she’s pregnant. Life seems to be going well for him.

Hao and his colleague, Chuen (Lau Siu-Kwan, of Corpse Mania and The Emperor and his Brother), are on the tail of Lok (Chin Kar-Lok, of King Boxer and Little Hero on the Run), a crime boss who’s dealing in arms and industrial espionage (of the arms industry). When the police crash one of Lok’s deals—or it may have been him crashing the party and stealing the material—a big shootout erupts, followed by a foot chase, followed by a martial arts duel between Hao and Lok. Lok is only able to escape after Chuen shows up and wrestles him into the harbor.

Following that mess, Hao takes leave and goes on vacation with his wife to Thailand. Upon arrival, a transvestite being chased by a gang hides her purse in Hao’s taxi. The gang, known as the Chiu Gang, assumes that Hao is in cahoots with the mysterious girl. They break into their hotel room and take Kiki hostage, threatening to kill her if Hao doesn’t turn over whatever’s in the purse.

While this is going on, we learn that the transvestite is in the employ of Lok, who in turn is a mid-level lieutenant in another gang, run by Yi (Michiko Nishiwaki, of Outlaw Brothers and My Lucky Stars)…the subtitles refer to them as the “Transvestite Gang.” Yi also employs Chuen, whom she occasionally uses for sex whenever he has enough time to visit Thailand.

From that point, the film escalates into a series of violent encounters between Hao and the Chiu Gang, or the Transvestite Gang and the Chiu Gang. Lives are taken. People are tortured and murdered. Lok is pressured by Yi into handing over his transvestite friend into Chiu’s hands. In the end, Hao and Lok are compelled to team up to bring down the Chiu gang.

So…uh…yeah. I’m not sure who the writer was, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was director-producer-supporting actor Lau Siu-Kwan. Lau, whose career started in the waning days of the Shaw Brothers, worked as an actor in low-budget films well into the 2000s, but occasionally produced, directed, and even wrote some of his own movies. Many of those were either adult films or no-budget horror schlock. This was his first foray into directing, which makes me wonder how he had much of a career at all.

The plot, such as it is, never makes very much sense. Most reviews state that the plot revolves around the search for stolen plans for American missile technology, but that doesn’t really feel like a thing after the first big set piece five minutes in. It’s like the movie sets up the McGuffin, quickly forgets about the McGuffin, occasionally mentions something that might be the McGuffin (the contents of the transvestite’s purse), but then allows the plot to escalate to the point that the McGuffin loses all relevance. By that point, you wonder what the entire point of the McGuffin was in the first place.

Something similar can be said about the subplot involving Chuen being a dirty cop. It’s established early on that such is the case, but it ultimately turns out to be irrelevant. Why? First of all, I don’t think Hao ever even discovers Chuen was even in Thailand, let alone that he was corrupt and in cahoots with Yi (whenever he wasn’t just outright in her). Second, nothing about him being a cop makes a difference in his actions while in Thailand: he could’ve been introduced as one of Yi’s lieutenants and the resulting film would have been largely the same.

Then there the usual plot holes for films like this. Mainly: Where does Hao get a hold of so much military-grade hardware in his running vendetta against the Chiu Gang? I mean, the guy arms himself with M-16s, grenade launchers, hand grenades…the works. I know these things probably go for (reasonably) cheap in Southeast Asia if you know where to look, but surely they can’t be so cheap that a man on a Hong Kong cop’s salary can just buy them at a minute’s notice.

Ultimately, the film is more about the sex than it is about anything else. This is exemplified by Chin Kar-Lok’s introductory scene, where we see him in bed with a naked woman, his head placed right next to her (exposed) crotch. Early on, we get a scene where an older policeman (who helps cover up Chuen’s activities) has a threesome with a pair of well-endowed woman, including HK Playboy Playmate Ka Ling (of Hong Kong Eva). The scene goes on for about eight minutes and, well, leaves you no doubt about the actresses’ bodies. Michiko herself also gets some love scenes, although she never shows anything more than some bare back. There is a lot of nudity—including a love scene of sorts—involving the Thai Lady Boys, with their silicone breasts and “man parts” on display. It’s equal-opportunity sleaze in Hero Dream. Something for all tastes!

The film’s action sequences were staged by Ma Yuk-Sing (Fist Power) and Wong Choh-Wah (The Cyprus Tigers and The Killer’s Romance). Much of the action is gunplay, which staged OK for an otherwise low-budget film. There are a number of shootouts—probably about six—that are probably on the level of Commando in terms of credibility, if not overall carnage. There are also a few fight scenes here and there: Brothers Chin Kar-Lok and Chin Siu-Ho have two short throwdowns, with Kar-Lok stealing these fights with his impressive kicking skills. Sophia Crawford shows up early on, throws a few kicks, and is promptly killed. Michiko Nishiwaki’s fights feel over-edited, either to compensate for her limited skills, or for those of her opponents. At the climax, there are a few individual fights once the heroes run out of bullets. Once again, not bad, but far from the caliber of the best of Sammo Hung.

As an actual film, with a story and things like that, Hero Dream comes pretty close to being a complete bust. Some of your lower-budgeted HK action films from the 80s and early 90s had questionable plots, but this one largely forgets what it’s supposed to be about for long swaths of time. Vintage HK action fans may enjoy the fights, but there are better showcases for the skills of the Chin brothers without having to wade through so much female skin. But then again, if you’re not the type to watch outright XXX porn and want to know how a ménage-a-trois works, than this is the film for you!

The Robin Shou "Action" Series (from Tai Seng)

Eastern Heroes (1991)
Aka: Fury in Red
Chinese Title: 轟天龍
Translation: Roaring Sky Dragon

Starring: Ben Ng Ngai-Cheung, Robin Shou, Conan Lee, Jo Jo Ngan, Newton Lai Hon-Chi, Ngai Suet, Lee Chun-Wa, Yau Gwok-Keung, Mark Houghton, Vincent Lyn
Director: Chong Lei
Action Director: Hung San-Nam, Tony Tam

Strange modern-day action produced by Phillip Ko Fei, with top billing given to Conan Lee and Robin Shou, even though both men disappear from the entire first half of the film after their initial introduction. The movie was part of Tai Seng's "Robin Shou Collection" in the late 1990s, alongside Fatal Chase and Interpol Connection (aka Hard to Kill).

The movie opens with gangster Hawk (Robin Shou) getting released from prison (in Los Angeles) and reconnecting with his boss, George (George Cheung, of The Amsterdam Connection). Hawk swears revenge against the cop who put him in jail, John (a white guy). John's wife is a Chinese woman named May, who is pregnant. May's brother, Roy (Conan Lee, of Tiger on the Beat), is John's partner.

After that introduction, we switch to Hong Kong, where we meet CID officer Steve Mak (Ben Ng, of Phantom War and Daughter of Darkness II). Steve is Roy and May's brother, and he's married to Jo Jo Ngan (of Brave Young Girls and City Warrior), who is also pregnant. Yeah, nothing good can come out of that. After an explosive introduction involving Mak taking down some bank robbers (including female Taiwanese bodybuilder Tu Kuei-Hua), Mak is assigned to handle the kidnapping of a successful businessman named Yau (Lee Wah-Kon).

Yau was kidnapped by a Vietnamese gang led by Vincent (Vincent Lyn, of Blonde Fury and Operation Condor), who in turn was contracted by the head of a rival company (Chang Ging-Cheung). The companies had been in a bidding war for a lucrative piece of property in the States and Yau had won, but if he's not around the sign the contract, then the rival gets the deal. Things are going swimmingly for the rival company until Vincent gets greedy, upping the price of the kidnapping (when the boss asks Vincent to murder Yau) and simultaneously negotiating a ransom with Yau's daughter.

Mak suspects that the rival businessman is involved and follows him around until the latter is ready to hand over the money to Vincent, which results in a three-way gunfight between the gang, the businessman's flunkies, and the police. When Yau's daughter tries to pay the ransom, the police step in and kill several members of the gang. At this point, the surviving members call George in the USA to help the, who sends Hawk to terrorize the Mak family and get revenge for his incarceration while he's at it...

The problem with Eastern Heroes is two-fold. First, it really does feel like two different movies stitched together. Not quite in the IFD/Filmark type of way, but after the introduction of Robin Shou's and Conan Lee's characters, the film spends the rest of the first half focusing on Steve Mak and the kidnapping. When the Vietnamese gangsters call George, which is where the film remembers that they had Robin Shou and Conan Lee in the cast, it becomes a completely different movie. And unfortunately, that new movie is extremely unpleasant, culminating in a long and explicit gang rape and mutilation of Jo Jo Ngan's character. And I guess this is the film where Conan Lee was making such a pest of himself on set that they finally blew his character up without telling him they would.

The action was staged by Hung San-Nam and Tony Tam. The former got his start as a stuntman in Venom Mob films and later went on to choreograph films like Vampire vs. Sorcerer and Escape from the Brothel. Tony Tam was one of the Baby Venoms (arguably a better kicker than Sun Chien himself) and later a member of Donnie Yen's team. There are only a handful of short fights dispersed throughout the movie, with the rest of the action being some well-staged gunfights. The finale gives us a shapes fight between Mark Houghton (playing an annoyingly smug FBI agent) and bodybuilder Lee Chun-Wa (Drunken Master), which is almost comic and clashes with the tone of the other fight going on. And that would be a feral, knock-down, drag-out brawl between Ben Ng and Robin Shou. Not a lot of neat-looking moves, just two men taking turns wailing on each other and kicking the other while they're down.

Fatal Chase (1992)
Chinese Title: 執法威龍
Translation: Law Enforcer

Starring: Robin Shou, Phillip Ko Fei, Waise Lee, Dion Lam, Yukari Oshima, Cheung Chi-Tak, Shing Fui-On, Jason Pai Piao, Ronnie Ricketts, Gabriel Romulo, Rachel Lobangco
Director: Phillip Ko Fei
Action Director: Dion Lam

Another movie that had been included in Tai Seng's "Robin Shou Action Series" back in the 1990s (God bless VHS). This one teams Robin Shou teams up with Yukari Oshima and Phillip Ko Fei in what comes across as a low-budget version of Ridley Scott's Black Rain, only with more kung fu.

After a gang boss (Jason Pai Piao, almost unrecognizable in his cameo here) is gunned down in public by a Filipino gang, the police (led by Wing Chun's Waise Lee) put Officer Dragon (Robin Shou) on the case. Dragon tails the gang leader, Torres (Dion Lam), who seems to be in league with a corrupt cop, Sai Gwai (Cheung Chi-Tak, of Cyprus Tigers). Torres sends his men to attack Dragon--they tie him up to his Filipina maid in a compromising position with a bomb next to them. Waise Lee tails Sai Gwai to a big drug deal between Torres and a local dealer (Shing Fui-On, in a cameo). Bullets fly and in the end, both the drug dealer and Torres are arrested.

Dragon (who was rescued offscreen) is assigned to take Torres back to the Philippines to be tried for his more extensive local crimes. Joining Dragon is a special investigations inspector, Cynthia (Yukari Oshima, of Avenging Quartet and Ultracop 2000). Dragon and Cynthia hand Torres over to the police, only for the real police show up several minute later, led by Sergeant Franco (Phillip Ko Fei). Ah ha! They have been bamboozled! Torres is now free and back with his boss/godfather, Tiger (Subas Herrero, of Guardian Angel and Asian Cop - High Voltage).

Tiger and Torres have a beef with another local gang leader, Tang (Franco Guerrero, of Warriors of the Apocalypse and Dynamite Johnson). Tang is meeting with some American gangsters to purchase some currency plates to make counterfeit currency, but Torres decides to steal them. This alerts Franco's old partner, Billy (Ronnie Rickets, of Angel on Fire), who is able arrest a member of Torres' gang. Tiger hires a pair of assassins to kill the guy before he can testify and then Billy as well. Meanwhile, Torres kills Cynthia in a scene not too unlike the one in Black Rain in which Andy Garcia gets offed. Dragon decides to defy orders and stay in the Philippines and team up with Franco to bring Torres, Tiger, and even some of the corrupt cops in their pockets to justice...

Unsurprisingly, this film is rather talky, jumping back and forth between multiple sets of characters. The action comes in fits and spurts, staged by Dion Lam (Spider-Man 2 and The Storm Riders). The fighting is rather uneven. When Phillip Ko Fei throws down with the female assassin (Rachel Lobangco, Lethal Panther 2 and Guardian Angel), the scene is undercranked and over-edited, which suggests that Ms. Lobangco wasn't a real martial artist. Shou's fight with her partner, played by Gabriel Romulo (the main villain in Ultracop 2000), fares better...until the fight inexplicably becomes comic (in an otherwise serious movie) with lots of intentional undercranking played for "comedic" effect.

The gunplay is mainly uninspired, although it gets a little better in the climax. Shou has a neat fight with Dion Lam at the very end, although it's a little too short. Don't expect much from Yukari Oshima: her role is essentially an extended cameo. She gets one fight alongside Robin against a room full of assassins disguised as baseball players. She throws some good kicks, but she's done much better work elsewhere. Not terrible, but I expected a lot more.

Interpol Connection (1992)
aka: Hard to Kill
Chinese Title: 至尊特警
Translation: Supreme Special Agent

                                                          

Starring: Robin Shou, Yukari Oshima, Simon Yam, Phillip Ko Fei, Lee Kwok-Leung, Lee Chun-Wa, Gabriel Romulo, Leung Yuen-Jing
Director: Phillip Ko Fei
Action Director: Dion Lam

The third and final movie in the "Robin Shou Action Series" that was released by Tai Seng back in the 1990s. This is another Phillip Ko-action fest starring Robin and Yukari and set in the Philippines. It's also not very good, once you get down to it.

The movie opens with a Hong Kong drug dealer played by Phillip Ko Fei arriving in the Philippines for a big heroin deal. The deal is interrupted by the arrival of the police, including the klutzy King Kong (Lee Chun-Wa, the muscular chef from Drunken Master). We know he's the Odious Comic Relief because he's the only member of the police force who doesn't wear a uniform: he's always decked out in a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and a Panama hat. The police manage to arrest Phillip Ko and that is that.

Back in Hong Kong (or at Interpol headquarters in Hong Kong), tough-as-nails Robin Shou is tasked with going to the Philippines and bringing Phillip back. He arrives in Manilla, where he's picked up by King Kong and the become friends of sorts, despite the fact that King Kong is a mostly ineffective boor. During transport to the airport, Phillip Ko is rescued by his men in a huge shootout. Robin and King Kong torture some suspects to find out what nightclub Phillip hangs out at, which culminates in a scene where a sex show involving Asian girls in bikinis lathering themselves in soap try to do the same to King Kong onstage, only to discover that he's wearing a bra, too...WTF?

Robin Shou follows Phillip's lover to his hideout, where Phillip gets the drop on him. Both he and King Kong are saved by the last-minute interference of Yukari Oshima, who shows up for no reason. At one point, Phillip and his men storm the hotel where Robin is staying and try to kill him, leading to another shootout. And finally, Robin, King Kong, and Yukari team up to take down Phillip at his next drug deal.

Despite the film's reasonably short running time, not a lot actually happens in this movie. And thus it feels slow and boring between most of the action scenes. I will admit that I watched this without subs, so I'm still not entirely sure what Yukari's role was supposed to be, though it seems she had some connection to Phillip Ko's lover--she even briefly fights Robin when he tries to shoot the other woman in the back. Much of the film revolves around King Kong acting stupid, which gets old very quickly.

The action was once again staged by Dion Lam, although he himself doesn't show up. Most of the action is gunplay--Robin gets to blow a number of stuntmen to pieces with a ginormous revolver. Yukari Oshima doesn't show up until about 50 minutes in, but has a nice one-on-many fight against Phillip Ko's men. At the end, Yukari has a nice fight against Ko's bodyguard, played by Fung Wai-Lun. It involves lots of kicking and staff fighting, plus the only time where an over-the-shoulder kick is used as a defensive counter to a jump kick. Meanwhile, Robin has a shorter-but-decent scuffle with Gabriel Romulo. The final fight between Robin and Phillip is a letdown, though.