20 Best Foreign Movies Of 2016

If you haven’t seen the predecessor to Kill Zone 2 (a.k.a. SPL II: A Time for Consequences), 2005’s SPL: Sha Po Lang, fear not. Apart from a Hong Kong cop protagonist, some blistering martial arts, and a couple of the original cast (albeit in entirely new roles), the two have very little in common and the film works perfectly fine as a standalone sequel.

Its plot is admittedly labyrinthine. A terminally ill Hong Kong crime boss named Mr Hung (Louis Koo) is involved in human organ racketeering and plans to kill his own brother for the healthy heart that will save his life. Meanwhile, undercover Hong Kong cop Chan Chi-Kit (Wu Jing) attempts to infiltrate Hung’s racketeering ring but finds his ruse ruffled and is carted off to the Thai prison where Hung’s goons keep their unwilling organ donors captive. There Chan Chi-Kit finds an unlikely ally in prison guard Chatchai (Tony Jaa) who doesn’t realise that the cop is the compatible donor he has been searching for to give his leukaemia-stricken young daughter a much-needed bone marrow transplant.

Don’t worry if you get lost, because Kill Zone 2’s highlights are its action-packed fight scenes in which Jing and Jaa get to show off their masterly martial arts skills. And there are plenty of those.