Undercover police officer Chan Chi-Kit (Jing Wu) is a dedicated cop who goes above and beyond the call of duty, even if it means becoming addicted to drugs while trying to bring down a crime boss Hung Mun-Gong (Louis Koo) in Hong Kong.  Through a series of twists that took me a while to straighten out in my mind (long story short: his boss and henchmen figure things out), he ends up in a jail in Thailand where Chatchai (Tony Jaa) works as a guard (when he isn’t taking his young daughter to the hospital for expensive leukemia treatments).

Quelle coincidence, newly-jailed Kit is a perfect match for a bone marrow transplant to save Chatchai’s daughter. Also, crime boss  Hung has a very weak heart and a very rare blood type, so only his brother (who is very much alive) could be a donor for him. Jumping into the mix is Kit’s police boss/uncle Chan Kwok-Wah (Simon Yam) trying desperately to find and save Kit, while at the same time thwarting the black market organ thefts occurring in the city, as well as keeping the crime boss’s brother alive to use as a bargaining chip to get Kit back.

Whew!

Corruption and loyalty are major themes for this Kill Zone 2 (and you don’t need to have seen Kill Zone to follow along): Jaa takes payoffs but uses them to pay for his daughter’s care, Kit does drugs but only to keep his undercover status a secret from the gang, Hung’s brother is loyal to him but knows it might come down to a “him or me” type situation.

At a smidge under two hours, it seems a wee bit long, like it could have lost about twenty minutes or so and still been a terrific movie. Jaa shows some genuine range, particularly in the scenes with his daughter. The look on his face when he finally accepts a cash drop, knowing he’s doing the wrong thing but for the right reason, is heartfelt and sincere, and made me feel for his character. He’s got some tough choices to make.

Kit knows he needs to get out of the prison if he wants to keep himself alive. He implores the other Thai inmates to help him out, since he’s a police officer. He tries to find someone who can speak either Cantonese or English in the general prison population, to no avail. One of the clever/cute ways that Chatchai and Kit end up communicating with each other is via a translation app on prison guard’s phone. It’s a nice human touch to what is mostly an excuse to kick ass from one end of the screen to the other, and it’s a funny bit every time they have to tell each other something, only to have to wait for the app to work.

But with stars like Tony Jaa and Jing Wu, there better be some amazing stunts and martial arts fights and, by golly, director Pou-Soi Cheng and action director Chung Chi Li deliver. To my utter delight and satisfaction, the fight scenes are incredible (even with the not-too-obvious wire work). There’s one prison-wide melee that is a wonder to behold, with a hundred or so inmates and guards beating each other up, throwing punches and kicks, and has the added  value of watching Kit run through it all, taking and delivering blows, all while holding a cell phone aloft, looking for reception. And there are some major bone-crushing, finger-slicing, blood-spattering moments that made this hard-boiled horror hound cringe and wince. Ouch.

The scenes with the daughter are nice, but most of those could have been trimmed and not lost any of the movie’s heart. We understand the stakes with her health and treatment, and we really don’t need to be reminded over and over how she’s getting along.

I was a big fan of Tony Jaa’s before I watched this and now I have an even stronger appreciation for his hard work and dedication to his craft. This is a terrific, fun film that ramps up the action and thrills throughout its entire running time. Uncle Mike sez check it out!